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CHRIST  AND  THE  ETERNAL 
ORDER 


CHRIST 


AND 

THE    ETERNAL    ORDER 


^*  In  whom  are  all  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and 
knowledge  hidden^ ^ 


BY 

JOHN  WRIGHT   BUCKHAM,  D.D. 

PROFESSOR    OF  CHRISTIAN   THEOLOGY  IN 
PACIFIC  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


BOSTON 
THE    PILGRIM    PRESS 

NEW  YORK  — CHICAGO 
1906 


*'       OP  TH?  ^ 


\    UNIVE 


Copyright,  1906 

By  The  Congregational  Sunday-School 
AND  Publishing  Society 


THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS,  CAMBRIDGE,  U.S.A. 


TO   MY   FATHER 

WHO   FIRST    AWOKE   IN    ME   THE    IMPULSE  TO    FAITH 

AND    FIRST    LED    ME    TO    PERCEIVE    THE 

NOBILITY  AND  OPPORTUNITY 

OF  THEOLOGY 


170819 


PREFACE 


Almost  from  boyhood  the  writer  has  been  con- 
cerned in  finding  a  mental  setting  for  Jesus  Christ. 
Sometimes  it  has  been  a  disturbing,  but  more  often 
a  stimulating,  pifoblem.  The  problem  arose  ap- 
parently from  the  absorption  of  his  earlier  religious 
life  in  God  as  Presence  and  Father,  and  the  diffi- 
culty in  finding  such  a  place  beside  him  for  Christ 
as  the  Bible  and  the  Church  seemed  to  require. 
For  a  time  the  words,  "  Believe  in  God,  believe  also 
in  me,"  afforded  temporary  standing-room.  The 
first  clear  light  on  the  intellectual  problem  came, 
after  entering  the  ministry,  through  reading  Fred- 
erick Denison  Maurice's  Theological  Essays,  in 
connection  with  the  words  in  Colossians,  "  Christ 
in  you,  the  hope  of  glory."  The  result  was  a  great 
illumination  of  mind  and  uplift  of  heart.  The 
difficulty  of  accounting  for  Christ  in  the  contrasted 
aspects  of  his  historical  limitation  and  his  universal 
significance  largely  disappeared.  The  conclusions 
reached  were  presented  in  an  article  entitled  "  The 
Indwelling  Christ,"  published  in  The  Andover  Re- 
view for  August,  1 89 1,  and  met  with  a  very  warm 
response.  The  substance  of  this  article  is  included 
in  Chapter  II,  Part  III  of  this  volume.  The  con- 
ception was  but  germinal  and  needed  time  for 
development  and  that  adjustment  to  theological 
[vii] 


Preface 

movements  and  systems  which  the  present  study 
aims  to  give. 

In  coming  into  an  ever  larger  conception  of  the 
meaning  of  Christ  and  of  his  relation  to  God  and 
to  humanity,  I  have  been  most  largely  indebted  to 
two  men,  —  the  late  honored  and  beloved  Professor 
Egbert  C.  Smyth,  learned  interpreter  and  earnest 
defender  of  the  Incarnation,  and  Dr.  George  A. 
Gordon,  theologian  and  preacher,  friend  and  inspirer 
of  those  who  are  searching  for  an  ampler  con- 
ception of  Christianity.  Into  the  labors  of  many 
others  also  I  have  entered,  as  will  appear  in  the 
pages  that  follow,  and  that  not  without  the  keen 
sense  of  privilege  which  must  come  to  one  who  is 
working  in  any  department  of  truth  to-day. 

In  treating  such  a  theme  as  this,  one  cannot 
but  feel  sometimes  that  he  has  transgressed  the 
wisdom  of  the  Psalmist  who  said,  "  Neither  do  I 
exercise  myself  in  great  matters,  or  in  things  too 
wonderful  for  me."  But  with  all  the  consciousness 
of  the  limitation  of  knowledge  and  the  inadequate 
results  of  our  efforts  to  attain  and  to  express  ultimate 
truth,  one  cannot  but  feel  also  that  along  with  the 
"dust  and  chaff"  of  speculation  he  gathers  enough 
of  real  truth  to  reward  the  endeavor  and  to  prove 
the  instinct  which  impels  us  to  seek  an  answer  to  the 
great  mysteries  of  life  and  God  and  destiny  to  be 
a  divine  impulse. 

Perhaps  the  best  recommendation  this  book  could 
have  is  that  it  is  open  to  the  charges  both  of  mysti- 
[  viii  ] 


Preface 

cism  and  of  rationalism;  for  the  two  tendencies 
counteract  one  another,  and  a  theology  which  is 
not  both  mystical  and  rational  is  not  a  fair  inter- 
pretation of  Christian  faith. 

If  there  is  any  note  of  dogmatism  or  of  specula- 
tive presumption  here,  it  is  repudiated  at  the  outset. 
In  discussions  of  this  nature,  to  lay  down  any 
challenge  of  "  thus  and  thus  it  must  be  "  is  both 
irreverence  and  folly.  One  can  be  very  sure  only 
of  principles  of  reason  and  facts  of  experience. 
Interpretations  of  these  facts  can  be  rational  and 
helpful  only  as  they  are  tentative  and  suggestive. 
As  such  they  have  both  validity  and  value. 

In  concluding  this  prefatory  word  let  me  say 
that  this  interpretation  of  the  Christ  has  not  been 
made  from  a  partisan  or  one-sided  view-point.  It 
is  useless  to  prop  up  any  theology  which  does  not 
rest  upon  secure  foundations.  I  have  faced  both 
sides  of  this  question.  I  share  sufficiently  the 
spirit  of  the  age  to  feel  keenly  the  difficulties  of 
the  New  Testament  Christology.  It  would  be 
much  easier,  and  apparently  much  more  scientific 
and  sensible,  to  throw  aside  all  the  supernatural  and 
metaphysical  elements  of  Christianity  and  explain 
Christ  simply  as  a  very  good  man  with  only  a  very 
good  man's  significance  in  a  revelation  which  has 
no  particular  historical  culmination.  But  would  it 
be  true  to  the  facts  ?  That  is  the  vital  question. 
Truth  that  is  exclusive  and  not  inclusive,  that 
sacrifices  reality  to  clarity,  that  blinks  the  harder 
[ix] 


Preface 

facts  and  ignores  the  deeper  meanings,  is  no  truth. 
It  is  only  the  shallow  verdict  of  a  self-sufficient  and 
pseudo-scientific  age-spirit.  We  ought  not  to 
decide  this  Christological  problem  without  getting 
as  near  as  possible  to  the  absolute  human  view- 
point, independent  of  the  presuppositions  of  either 
the  first  century  or  of  our  own.  When,  therefore, 
we  find  that  on  the  whole  the  major  witness  of  the 
mind  of  humanity,  in  its  most  enlightened  part, 
has  recognized  supernatural,  or  better,  mystical 
elements  in  Christianity,  we  may  well  hesitate  be- 
fore eradicating  them  in  obedience  to  the  impulse 
of  our  time.  If  we  do,  we  shall  surely  pave  the 
way  for  the  misgivings  of  Bishop  Blougram, 

V  Once  feel  about,  and  soon  or  late  you  hit 
Some  sense,  in  which  it  might  be,  after  all. 
Why  not,  '  The  Way,  the  Truth,  the  Life  '.?  '* 

Truth  is  too  large,  life  is  too  real,  mystery  is  too 
great  for  snap  judgments,  either  by  an  individual 
or  a  generation,  especially  judgments  of  denial  or 
exclusion.  Far  better  is  it,  and  far  truer,  to  believe 
too  much  than  too  little,  to  unduly  greaten  Christ, 
if  that  is  possible,  than  to  unduly  narrow  him. 


Berkeley,  California. 


[x] 


CONTENTS 


Part  I 


THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF   CHRIST 

Chapter 

I.     The  Christology  of  To-day  .     .     . 
II.     Revelation  :  Progressive  and  Final 

III.  The  Christocentric  View-point 

IV.  Christ  Interpreting  God       .     . 
V.     Christ  Interpreting  Nature 

VI.     Christ  Interpreting  Man       .     . 
VII.    The  Worship  of  Christ     .     .     . 


Page 
3 

lO 

i8 
26 
32 
39 

47 


Part  II 

ASPECTS   OF   CHRIST 

VIII.  The  Human  Christ 57 

IX.  The  Historic  Christ 64 

X.  The  Eternal  Christ 71 

XI.  The  Living  Christ fS 

XII.    The  Cosmic  Christ 85 

[xi] 


Contents 


Part  III 


THE   POTENCIES    OF   CHRIST 


Chapter 

Page 

XIII. 

Christ  Pre-present  and  Pre-potent      .       97 

XIV. 

Christ  Indwelling 

.     104 

XV. 

Christ  in  Conscience    .     .     . 

.     116 

XVI. 

Christ  Regenerating    .     .     . 

124 

XVII. 

Christ  Atoning 

133 

XVIII. 

Christ  Risen 

.     142 

XIX. 

Christ  Returning    .... 

•     151 

XX. 

Christ  and  Social  Redemption 

159 

XXI. 

The  Kingdom  of  Christ     .     . 

166 

APPENDIX 

I.     Historical  Sketch  of  the  Christocentric 

Theology 177 

II.    The  Vital  Issues  of  the  Harnack  Con- 
troversy     184 


[xii] 


PART   I 
THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  CHRIST 


"In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with  God,  and  the 
Word  was  God." 

"  This  teacher  was  reason  itself,  it  was  visible  in  him  and  indeed 
appeared  bodily  in  him."  — Justin  Martyr. 

"With  Clement  of  Alexandria,  the  idea  of  the  Logos  has  a  content 
which  is  on  the  one  hand  so  wide  that  he  is  found  wherever  man  rises 
above  the  level  of  nature,  and  on  the  other  so  concrete  that  an  authentic 
knowledge  of  him  can  only  be  obtained  from  historical  revelation." — 
Adolf  Harnack,  History  of  Dogma^  Vol.  II. 

"  That  one  Face,  far  from  vanish,  rather  grows, 
Or  decomposes  but  to  rccompose, 
Become  my  universe  that  feels  and  knows  !  " 

—  Robert  Browning,  Epilogue. 

"  What  we  want  is  not  a  summation  of  doctrine.  We  have  had  enough 
of  that.  What  we  want  a  great  deal  more  is  something  to  give  us  breadth 
of  standing  and  a  greater  vitality  of  idea."  —  Horace  Bushnell,  Life 
and  Letters. 

"Ring  in  the  Christ  that  is  to  be."  —Alfred  Tennyson. 


^      OF  THE 


OF 

CHRIST 

AND   THE    ETERNAL   ORDER 

I 

THE   CHRISTOLOGY   OF   TO-DAY 

We  face  vital  issues  in  Christology.  There  is  per- 
plexity, uncertainty,  confusion.  Divergent  theories, 
varying  attitudes  prevail.  Agnosticism  present-day 
looks  upon  Christ  with  a  respectful  pity,  chnstoiogy 
as  one  prattling  innocently  of  a  God  of  whom  he 
knew  nothing;  Monism,  the  Mysticism  of  modern 
science,  absorbed  in  cosmic  secrets,  feeling  after 
the  Unknown,  ignores  Christ ;  Naturalism  promptly 
classifies  him  with  the  g-emcs  homo  and  queries  no 
further;  Humanitarianism  honors  his  humanity, 
and  is  blind  to  himself;  Philosophy  and  Ethics 
pay  tribute  to  his  teaching  and  fail  to  apprehend 
the  Teacher ;  the  older  Orthodoxy  clings  desper- 
ately to  outgrown  formulas  of  his  Deity,  convinced 
of  standing  fast  for  a  truth  that  it  can  neither  re- 
late nor  define,  yet  conscious  of  the  antiquity  of 
its  armor  and  the  inadequacy  of  its  defense.  The 
scholarship  of  the  Church  is  absorbed  with  ques- 
tions concerning  the  literary  sources  of  his  life  and 
with  problems  connected  with  its  historical  presen- 
tation.^    And  all  the  time  the  Living  Christ  moves 

^  '*  The  unsatisfactoriness  of  the  present  teaching,  which 
leaves  us  only  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  is  becoming  more  and  more 

[3] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

among  men,  and  they  find  in  him  the  Way,  the 
Truth,  and  the  Life. 

So  long  as  Christ   has  not  only  personal  pre- 
eminence, but  the  power  of  saving  men,  the  ques- 
tion will  be,  must  be,  asked :  Whence 

A  Question         ,  ,  ,  .  ,  •        , 

that  will  not    has  he  this  power,  what  is  the  secret  of 

be  put  aside  '- 

his  life-giving  personality,  why  does  he 
continue  so  to  dominate  our  modern  thought  and 
ideals?  Is  it  a  fictitious  and  failing  hold  that  he 
has  upon  us,  or  is  it  real  and  vital  and  destined  to 
be  controlling?  If  so,  what  is  the  secret?  What 
think  ye  of  Christ  ?  The  question  presses  and 
burns,  and  refuses  to  be  put  aside.  Thinking  men 
must  meet  it,  meet  it  anew  in  this  day,  and  strive 
to  answer  it  in  the  light  of  enlarged  conceptions 
of  God  and  of  man  and  of  the  universe. 

I 

The  most  virile  and  hopeful  movement  in  mod- 
ern theology  is  what  is  known  as  the  Chris  toe  eti  trie 
Theology}     Largely   the   outgrowth   of 
centric  The-     modcm  study  of  the  Gospels  and  of  the 

ology,  and  .  ', 

its  arrested      Historic  Christ,  it  has  laid  hold  of  the 

Progress  ,        .        .^  -     - 

true  worth  and  significance  of  Jesus 
Christ  with  an  insight  and  a  power  that  have 
aroused  attention  and  produced  conviction.  But 
it   has  failed   to  move   onward    beyond  a  certain 

apparent  from  day  to  day."  —  Pres.  Charles  Cuthbert  Hall, 
The  Universal  Elements  of  the  Christian  Religion^  p.  144. 

^  A  historical  sketch  of  the  Chistocentric  Theology  will 
be  found  in  the  Appendix. 

[4] 


The  Christology  of  To-day 

range  of  affirmation.  The  principle  has  been 
clearly  stated,  the  method  justified,  the  sufficiency 
of  the  Christ  personality  demonstrated,  but  prog- 
ress is  arrested.  It  still  remains  to  show  how 
nature  and  humanity  are  to  be  interpreted  through 
Christ.  The  Christocentric  theology  is  at  a  stand- 
still, and  for  this  reason:  The  Historic  Christ  (to 
whom  the  modern  Christocentric  thought  has  con- 
fined itself)  alone  is  insufficient  to  hiterpret  either 
humanity  or  nature.  The  difficulty  is  that  nature 
and  humanity  were  here  before  Jesus.  Unless, 
therefore,  Jesus  was  intimately  related  to  a  Logos, 
who  was  before  him,  nature  and  humanity  ex- 
plain him,  rather  than  he  them.  With  a  thrill  of 
insight  and  joy,  the  new  theology  has  caught  the 
universal  significance  of  Jesus  as  the  new  science 
of  history  has  disclosed  him.  Not  until  the  evo- 
lutionary principle  had  reconstructed  the  con- 
ception of  history  was  it  possible  to  realize  how 
commanding  and  constructive  a  place  Jesus  Christ 
occupies  in  human  history.  It  is  no  wonder  that 
the  new  theology,  smitten  with  the  splendor  and 
significance  of  this  new  disclosure  of  the  cen- 
trality  of  Jesus,  has  confined  its  attention  to  this 
illuminating  fact,  and  failed  to  coordinate  with  it 
the  fact  of  the  presence  of  a  religious  nature 
and  a  spiritual  Presence  in  humanity  before  the 
Incarnation.^ 

^  The    Ritschlian  theology  is  surprisingly   narrow  and 
short-sighted  here.     "  The  distinction,"  says  Kaftan,  "  drawn 

[s] 


Chnst  and  the  Eternal  Order 

It  is  this  limitation  of  view,  this  concentration 
upon  the  historic  and  individual  in  Christ,  to  the 
The  Defect  of  Hcglcct  of  the  inner,  eternal,  less  defin- 
ceStric'^Tht^  able,  more  universal  in  him,  that  has 
°'°^^  caused  the  reluctance  and  protest,  which 

have  all  along  accompanied  the  new  theology,  on 
the  part  of  many  philosophical  and  comprehensive 
minds.  If  Christianity  can  be  wholly  reduced  to 
historic  terms  and  centered  in  Jesus  Christ,  what 
of  those  fundamental  and  underlying  elements  in 
Christianity  which  are  common  to  all  religions, 
and  which  seem  to  be  an  innate  possession  of  the 
human  soul,  a  part  of  man  so  far  as  he  can  be 
detached  from  a  historic  setting? 

The  time  has  come  when  the  Christocentric  the- 
ology must  either  enlarge  its  conception  and  its 
interpretation  of  Christ,  or  surrender  its  position. 
In  order  to  be  the  center  of  the  historic  movement, 
Christ  must  be  more  than  this;  he  must  be  the 
center  and  power  of  the  whole  sphere  of  the  reli- 
gious life  of  man.  Christian  and  non-Christian,  past 
and  future,  elemental  and  developed,  primitive  and 
perfected. 

Thus  are  we  led,  just  as  inevitably  as  the  Chris- 
tian thought  of  the  first  century  was  led,  from  the 
Historic  Christ  to  the  Eternal  Christ,  from  the 
Christ  of  Experience  to  the  Logos,  —  showing  that 

between  a  historical  and  ideal  Christ  involves  the  destruc- 
tion of  our  faith  in  the  Christian  revelation."  (^Dogmatiky 
p.  404.) 

[6] 


The  Christology  of  To-Day 

Christianity  involves,  necessitates,  such  a  develop- 
ment. 

There  are  two  equally  characteristic  and  signifi- 
cant facts  about  the  gospel  —  the  simplicity  that 
is  in  Christ  and  the  profundity  that  is  in  Christ. 
Side  by  side  with  the  simple  story  of  the  Man  of 
Galilee  are  the  mystic,  far-reaching  intuitions  of 
Paul  and  of  the  authors  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  and 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  Cut  out  one  or  the 
other  presentation  and  the  New  Testament  is  shorn 
either  of  its  simplicity  or  of  its  splendor. 

II 

Whatever  the  origin  of  the  Logos  doctrine, 
whether  it  came  from  the  Greek  mind  or  the  Jew- 
ish, or  both,  through  Plato  or  the  Stoics, 

'     ,  .,  ^  .       ,       ,.     ,         The  Value  of 

or   Philo,    matters    comparatively  little,  the  Logos 

r^.  ,  ,.  .  ,         .\  .         ,/-  .       Doctrine 

The  value  hes  in  the  idea  itself,  as  it 
meets  a  universal  conviction  of  the  human  mind  in 
its  searching  into  the  relation  of  humanity  to  God. 
Greek,  Jew,  Oriental,  Western,  first  century  or 
fourth  century  or  twentieth  century,  —  so  that  a 
theology  think  itself  through  concerning  Jesus 
Christ,  it  comes  to  much  the  same  conviction  of 
the  divineness  of  humanity  and  the  humanness  of 
God,  as  both  truths  stand  out  strong  and  clear  in 
the  revealing  personality  of  Christ. 

Neither  the  phenomenal,  uncorrelated  Christ  of 
Ritschlianism,  having  the  worth  of  God  and  repre- 
senting him  to  men,  yet  not   himself  divine,  nor 

[7] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

the  racial  prototype  of  Schleiermacher  and  others, 
*'  a  man  in  advance  of  his  age  and  surroundings, 
Transition  ^^  exceptional  in  moral  development 
christoiogy  gj^j  consciousness  as  to  become  and 
remain  a  guide  and  example  to  his  fellow  men  in 
all  religious  faith  and  conduct,"  ^  will  satisfy  Chris- 
tian thought.  Such  tentative,  makeshift  concep- 
tions of  Christ  will  serve  only  for  transition 
purposes.  We  must  move  on,  either  into  the 
naturalistic  interpretation  of  Jesus  as  a  singularly 
good  man  but  without  racial  significance,  or  into  a 
reaffirmation  and  reinterpretation  of  the  Logos 
doctrine  in  terms  of  modern  thinking. 

Ill 

This  volume  is  an  essay  in  the  direction  of  the 

adaptation  of  the  fundamental  truth  of  the  older 

Christoiogy  to  the  atmosphere  and  in- 

Christianity  ,  _ 

i«  Philosophy   terests  of  the  present  day.     Ever  smce 

as  well  as  *  "^ 

History  and     the  Hsc  of  Ritschliauism    in    Germany 
and  the  publication  of  the  Hibbert  Lec- 
tures of  Edwin  Hatch  in  England,  the  tendency  has 
been  to  abjure  the  metaphysical  element  in  Chris- 
tianity and  to  exalt  the  historical  and  ethical.    The 
movement  has  been  healthful,  invigorating,  clarify- 
ing, restoring   a   long-disturbed    balance.     But   it 
has  been  a  movement  of  protest,  built  upon  a  nar- 
row foundation,  and  its  limitations  are  becoming 
more  and  more  apparent.    Minds  of  a  certain  type 
*  Evolution  of  Trinitarianism^  L.  L.  Paine,  p.  282. 
[8] 


The  Chris  to  logy  of  To -Day 

chafe  and  are  restive  under  its  restrictions.  For 
such  at  least  a  larger  interpretation  of  Christ  is 
essential.  But  must  we  then  say  that  it  is  all  a 
matter  of  temperament,  and  that  the  best  that  can 
be  done  is  to  consign  the  historical  Christ  to  the 
man  of  the  practical  temperament  and  the  mystical 
Christ  to  the  man  of  the  mystical  temperament  and 
so  have  done  with  the  problem  ?  Rather,  shall  we 
not  say  that  Christianity  is  so  comprehensive  in  its 
scope,  and  the  Christ  so  sufficient  and  significant, 
that  he  not  only  meets  the  need  of  every  type  of 
mind,  but  that  he  unites  all  moral  and  spiritual 
values  so  harmoniously  and  consistently  that  every 
man  may  recognize  in  him  not  only  his  own  especial 
need  but  also  something  of  what  his  fellow  finds? 

This  is  the  conviction  and  purpose  with  which 
this  book  is  sent  forth.  It  is  an  endeavor  to  de- 
lineate the  Greater  Christ.  If  the  aspects  of  Christ 
presented  seem  so  many  as  to  be  confusing  it  is 
only  because  his  import  is  so  large  and  his  poten- 
cies are  so  rich.  If  the  historical  aspect  of  Christ 
is  subordinated  to  the  spiritual  and  eternal  it  is 
only  because  the  Historical  Christ  is  now  attracting 
an  attention  that  is  too  exclusive  to  be  compre- 
hensive. For  it  is  only  in  relation  to  the  eternal 
that  the  true  values  of  history  can  be  apprehended, 
just  as  it  is  only  in  history  that  we  can  recognize 
the  true  values  of  eternity. 


[9] 


II 

REVELATION:    PROGRESSIVE   AND   FINAL 

Religion  involves  revelation.  Otherwise  it  is 
purely  one-sided  and  subjective,  a  bird  with  a 
broken  wing.  The  outgoing  of  God  to  man,  the 
impartation  of  the  Divine  to  the  human,  is  revela- 
tion. Unless  there  had  been  revelation  from  the 
very  beginning  of  human  Hfe,  preceding  and  in- 
itiating it,  religion  could  have  been  only  a  human 
product  and  must  have  withered  away,  root  and 
branch.  For  religion  is  either  a  divine-human 
mutuality,  or  it  is  a  colossal  human  self-deception. 
And  such  a  self-deception  must  have  long  since 
worn  out.  The  very  survival  of  religion,  if  not 
its  very  existence,  implies  revelation. 


Revelation  is  multiform.  The  channels  of  the 
divine  communication  are  rich  and  varied.  Life 
Revelation  ^^  revealing;  nature  is  revealing;  rea- 
muitiform  g^j^^  inspiration,  conscience  are  reveal- 
ing. God  touches  man  at  as  many  points  and 
through  as  many  media  as  man  touches  God. 
Always  the  relation  is  reciprocal.  Always  on  the 
[lo] 


Revelation  :   Progressive  and  Final 

part  of  God  it  is  revelation,  and  on  the  part  of  man 
religion.  "  Revelation,"  it  has  been  well  said,  "  is 
but  the  obverse  of  discovery.  No  truth  is  ever 
revealed  to  an  intelligence  except  as  it  is  dis- 
covered ; "  nor  is  any  truth  discovered  except  as 
it  is  revealed. 

Revelation  is  universal.  Revelation  is  not  con- 
fined to  any  one  people  or  age.  It  is  as  impartial 
as  the  sunlight. 

"Love  works  at  the  center, 
Heart-heaving  alway; 
Forth  speed  the  strong  pulses 
To  the  borders  of  day."  ^ 

Men  were  not  seeking  God  vainly  in  the  pre- 
christian  centuries.  Revelation  reached  to  the 
Aztec  and  the  Chinaman,  as  well  as  to  Revelation 
the  Greek  and  the  Jew.  It  flowed  forth  ^p^^^^^ 
with  the  stream  of  Time;  it  flows  to-day.  The 
light  dawned  with  the  dawning  of  intelligence. 
Through  the  muddy  vesture  of  human  ignorance 
and  superstition  it  long  glowed  but  dimly,  but  the 
light  itself  was  the  pure  flame  of  eternal  truth. 

But,  though  revelation  is  universal,  it  is  not  uni- 
form. God  has  ever  been  impartial,  but  never 
undiscriminating.      Races    differ,     reli- 

,.  ,      .  .  ^  .        Revelation 

gions  diverge,  revelation  vanes.    Certain  discrimina- 

tive 

truths  possess  certain  nations.     Racial 
capacities  are  unlike.     All  cups  are  filled,  but  all 
are  not  of  the  same  shape  or  capacity.     God  has 
1  Emerson,  "  The  Sphinx,"    ■ 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

some  nations,  as  he  has  some  souls,  "whom  he 
whispers  in  the  ear,"  not  that  they  may  keep  the 
secret  to  themselves,  but  that  they  may  impart 
it  to  others.  Revelation  is  for  transmission,  as 
election  is  for  service. 


II 

May  we  not  take  another  step  and  say  that,  as 
revelation,  though  universal,  is  nevertheless  dis- 
Reveiation  Criminative  and  comes  to  different  races 
Bciccuve  jj^  differing  forms  and  degrees,  so  to  two 
or  three  races  especially,  and  to  one  supremely, 
God  revealed  himself,  in  order  thus  to  impart  him- 
self most  fully  and  most  normally  to  humanity  at 
large  ? 

Until  the  later  years  of  the  last  century  it  was 
customary  to  magnify  the  revelation  to  the  Jews 
by  disparaging,  or  denying,  revelation  to  other 
peoples.  Now  that  the  study  of  religion  has 
shown  the  reality  and  extent  of  the  divine  revela- 
tion to  many  peoples,  —  and  in  some  measure  to 
all,  —  the  superiority  of  the  Hebrew  religion  can 
be  made  evident  only  by  comparison,  no  longer 
simply  by  contrast.  It  is  by  such  comparison, 
free  and  fair  and  impartial,  and  by  that  only,  that 
the  true  splendor  and  scope  of  the  revelation  of 
the  divine  glory  and  righteousness  to  Israel  ap- 
pears. Compared  with  the  imperfect  conceptions 
of  other  races,  the  truth  reached  by  the  Hebrew 

[12] 


Revelation:  Progressive  and  Final 

prophets  (but  reached  only  by  revelation)  is  so 
transcendent  in  its  nature  as  to  justify  calling  it, 
not  the  only,  but  the  highest^  revelation  of  God  to 
any  people.  This  is  simply  induction  from  litera- 
ture and  history,  and  not  mere  assumption  in 
behalf  of  a  theory.  The  superiority  of  the  Hebrew 
conception  of  God  is  a  demonstrable  fact.  And 
the  inference  is  natural,  if  not  inevitable,  that  the 
superiority  is  due,  not  simply  to  greater  achieve- 
ment, but  also  to  a  unique  and  gracious  revelation 
on  the  part  of  God. 

Ill 

One  more  step  makes  our  ascent  complete.  If 
the  Divine  Being  may  reasonably  have  revealed 
himself  with  especial  clearness  and  ful- 

Revelation 

ness  to  and  through  one  nation,  may  he  through  an 

,  ,       ,  ,!,.,.-    Individual 

not  as  reasonably  have  revealed  himself 
yet  more  fully  to  and  through  one  individual  — 
still  for  the  sake  of  humanity?  Can  any  form  of 
revelation  conceivable  be  as  pure,  as  persuasive, 
as  perfect,  as  incarnation?  Detach  the  question, 
as  far  as  possible,  from  its  connection  with  Christ 
and  consider  it  by  itself. 

Besides  incarnation  in  an  individual,  there  are 
but  three  other  forms  which  revelation  could  con- 
ceivably take  for  its  ultimate  expression.  Granted 
that  revelation  is  progressive,  it  must  culminate 
either  in  a  direct  communication  from  above,  or  in 
[■3] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

nature,  or  in  incarnation,  general  or  individual. 
Revelation  by  direct  communication,  oral  or  writ- 
ten, appeals  to  the  uncultured  mind  as  quite  the 
most  complete  and  convincing  method  possible. 
A  Koran  from  heaven,  commandments  graven  on 
tablets  of  stone,  an  infallible  Bible  —  such,  to  the 
unthinking  mind,  seems  the  only  infallible,  abso- 
lutely satisfying  method  of  revelation.  But  a 
moment's  consideration  of  the  rigidity  and  inade- 
quacy of  language  displays  the  defect  of  such  a 
method.  The  provincialism  and  hollowness  and 
unreality  which  would  inevitably  attach  to  it  show 
it  unworthy  of  a  God  whose  thoughts  are  high 
above  our  thoughts  and  his  ways  above  our  ways. 
When  we  turn  to  nature  it  is  at  once  evident 
that  while  nature  affords  a  constant  and  cumulative 
revelation  of  God,  it  does  not  constitute 

Nature  inad-        ,       i  •    »  ^  «  i      .  xr 

equate  for        thc  highcst,  the  complctc  revclatiou.     If 

Revelation  ,  7     ,  .  i  •        i 

there  is  harmony  m  nature  there  is  also 
discord ;  if  there  is  beauty  there  is  also  ugliness ; 
if  there  is  evolution  there  is  also  devolution ;  if 
there  is  life  there  is  also  death.  It  is  conceivable 
that  nature  might  have  been  constituted  without 
these  defects,  but  it  is  questionable  how  far  a  flaw- 
less creation  would  meet  the  needs  of  our  moral 
nature  in  the  struggle  for  character.  A  perfected 
nature  goes  best,  as  Paul  saw,  with  a  perfected 
humanity.  There  is  enough  in  nature  of  sublimity 
and  beauty  to  reveal  God  increasingly  to  men,  but 
nature  herself  is  not,  and  could  not  be,  so  perfect 

[14] 


Revelation:  Progressive  and  Final 

a  medium  of  revelation  —  so  truly  capax  Dei — as 
•humanity. 

Coming  to  humanity,  then,  as  alone  capable  of 
affording  the  highest  revelation  of  God,  the  ques- 
tion  at   once   arises  whether    national, 

-    1         .,..,,.  .  rr  1         Humanity  as 

racial  or  mdividual  mcarnation  offers  the  a  whole  inad- 
equate for  a 
purest,  most  responsive  and  most  inten-   Perfect  Rcve- 

sive  medium  for  the  divine  purpose.  A 
chosen  nation,  as  we  have  already  seen,  constitutes 
a  natural  and  effective  instrument  of  revelation, 
but  one  that  must  in  the  nature  of  the  case  have 
limitations.  A  peculiar  people,  peculiarly  en- 
dowed and  enlightened,  is  intelligible,  but  a  perfect 
people  in  whom  God  is  perfectly  incarnated  would 
be  an  abnormal  spectacle  that  would  alienate  the 
world  rather  than  save  it.  Only  figuratively  and 
by  analogy  can  God  be  said  to  have  incarnated 
himself  in  Israel.  And  only  thus,  too,  can  he  be 
said  to  have  incarnated  himself  in  the  race  as  a 
whole.  The  idea  of  humanity  as  the  incarnation 
of  God  has  of  late  gained  increasing  favor.  In 
a  sense  it  is  a  true  and  fruitful  conception.  God 
is  in  humanity,  in  men  of  all  times  and  races, 
revealing  himself  as  virtue,  truth  and  love.  But 
only  in  a  secondary  and  figurative  sense  can  this 
be  called  incarnation.  There  is  a  mingling  of 
baser  elements  with  finer,  of  earthy  with  spiritual, 
of  Satanic  with  divine,  in  humanity  which  makes  it 
incompetent  to  speak  of  humanity  as  the  incarna- 
tion of  God  in  any  reasonably  exact  sense.  Panthe- 
[■S] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

ism  alone  can  make  humanity,  as  a  wliole,  wholly- 
divine  by  breaking  down  all  distinctions  between 
divine  and  human,  good  and  evil. 


IV 

It  is  only  in  a  single  life,  unitary  in  its  purity 
and  radiance,  all-embracing  in  its  winsomeness 
_  ,     „         and  sympathy,  that  we  can  hope  to  find 

Only  a  Person  J       V         J  ■>  r  ^ 

can  reveal  a      a  truc  incamation,  a  perfect  revelation 

Person  '         r 

of  God,  in  his  human  kinship  and 
character.  Given  such  a  life,  and  a  true  knowl- 
edge of  God  and  an  assured  confidence  in  him 
follow.  Personality  alone  suffices.  Only  a  person 
can  reveal  a  person.  If  God  is  personal,  nothing 
less  than  a  personal  being  can  reveal  him  as  he  is. 
Nature  may  reveal  certain  of  his  qualities  and 
attributes;  humanity  in  its  corporate  and  supe- 
rior life  may  disclose  even  more  of  his  nature; 
but  only  a  person,  conscious,  clear-souled,  perfect, 
can  reveal  his  very  Self.  **  It  is  no  more  unworthy 
of  God,"  says  Athanasius,  **  that  he  should  incar- 
nate himself  in  one  man,  than  it  is  that  he  should 
dwell  in  the  world.  Since  he  abides  in  humanity, 
which  is  a  part  of  the  universe,  it  is  not  unreason- 
able that  he  should  take  up  his  abode  in  a  man, 
who  should  thus  become  the  organ  by  which  God 
acts  in  the  universal  life."^  Whether  such  a 
Revealer  must  of  necessity  be  human  or  divine, 

^  De  Incarnatione  Verbi. 
[i6] 


Revelation:  Pros^ressive  and  Final 


^i> 


or  both,  is  a  question  that  cannot  be  settled 
abstractly.  The  first  task  of  Theology  is  to  focus 
all  its  light,  concentrate  all  its  attention  upon  the 
individual  man  whom  history  furnishes  as  the  only 
possible  claimant  of  such  a  prerogative  and,  with- 
out prejudice  or  passion,  ascertain  whether  he 
bears  the  marks,  carries  the  strength,  and  exhibits 
the  grace  necessary  to  the  fulfilment  of  so  solitary 
and  sublime  a  mission. 


['7] 


Ill 

THE  CHRISTOCENTRIC   VIEW-POINT 

Christian  Theology  should  begin  where  the 
Christian  religion  began  —  with  Christ.  He  is 
Christ  the  ^h^  radiating  center  of  both.  Theol- 
for'S&'la?*  ogy»  of  course,  precedes  Christ,  just 
Theology  ^^  j^^g  rcHgion.  Yet  both  were  made 
new  in  him.  As  a  matter  of  fact  we  cannot 
divest  ourselves  of  our  Christianity  in  studying 
theology.  We  are  Christian  by  environment, 
whether  we  are  such  by  conviction  or  not  We 
may  make  pretense  to  be  unaffected  by  Christian 
conceptions,  and  beginning  where  the  untutored 
savage  began,  with  Natural  Theology,  ask  what 
are  the  evidences  of  God  in  nature  (a  question, 
however,  which  the  primitive  man  never  asked), 
pass  from  Natural  Theology,  as  most  systems  of 
theology  do,  to  the  Bible  as  a  source  of  revelation, 
thence  to  the  doctrine  of  God  as  a  Trinity,  thence 
to  anthropology,  and  so  at  length  arrive  at  Christ. 

I 

Such  a  method,  although   it   has   the   seeming 
advantage    of   following    and    repeating,   after   a 
[i8] 


The  Christocentric   View-Pomt 

fashion,  the  racial  experience  in  reaching  Christ, 
is  nevertheless  both  unreal  and  irrational.  For,  in 
the  first  place,  the  racial  process  cannot 

*^  ^  The  True 

be  reproduced  in  one  nurtured  in  Chris-  order  too  long 

■■^  reversed 

tian  truth  and  standing  upon  a  higher 
level  of  revelation.  He  may  look  back,  but  he 
cannot  go  back,  over  the  course  of  develop- 
ment. Moreover,  to  ignore  our  vantage-ground, 
to  defer  the  study  of  Christ  until  after  the  study  of 
nature,  of  God  and  of  man,  is  to  fail  to  make  use 
of  our  chief  source  of  illumination.  It  is  like 
hunting  in  the  dark  when  a  light  is  at  hand.  "  To 
build  up  a  professedly  revealed  theology  on  a  pro- 
fessedly natural  one  is  to  construct  a  system  with- 
out either  unity  or  profound  connection,"  wrote 
Sabatier. 

The  mind  of  Christ  colors,  even  if  it  does  not 
shape,  all  our  thought  of  God,  of  nature  and  of 
humanity.     For  the  mind  of  Christen- 
dom is,  at  least  partially  and  professedly,  Light  we 
the  mind  of  Christ.     The  true  method 
of   theology,    therefore,    is    to    go    first    to    the 
Christ,  —  the   ultimate    fact  of   Christianity,   the 
clearest,    strongest   Light    upon   the  whole    reli- 
gious  horizon,  —  determine,   so   far   as    possible, 
what  this  Light  is,  whence  it  is,  how  far  it  throws 
its  beams,  and  then,  if  it  pfove  a  true  Light,  to 
study  God,  nature  and  humanity  in  the  illumina- 
tion of  its  rays.     In  other  words.  Christian  The- 
ology should  be  Christocentric. 

[19] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

It  is  strange  how  slow  we  have  been  in  coming 
to  this  view-point,  or  rather  in  coming  back  to  it, 

for  it  was  that  of  the  early  fathers,  as 
toaTra™       well   as   of  the    apostles.      "Men   still 

believe,"   says    Dr.    McConnell,    "  that 

*  belief  in  God '  is  a  prerequisite,  preparing  the 
way  for  one  who  would  be  Christ's  disciple. 
They,  therefore,  with  well-meaning  folly,  assault 
the  mind  with  '  evidences.'  They  would  estab- 
lish first  the  being  of  God  by  means  of  argu- 
ments drawn  from  nature,  from  history,  from 
intuition,  from  the  reasonableness  of  things.  They 
would  first  discover  God,  then  introduce  Christ 
as  his  Son,  and  prove  the  relationship.  They 
strangely  fail  to  note  that  should  they  be  suc- 
cessful in  the  preliminary  task,  Christ  becomes 
superfluous.    It  exactly  reverses  his  method.    For 

*  no  one  knoweth  .  .  .  the  Father,  save  the  Son, 
and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son  willeth  to  reveal 
Him.'  "  1 

That  theology  is  slowly  but  surely  adjusting 
itself  to  the  Christocentric  view-point,  making 
him  central  in  form  who  is  central  in  fact,  is  as 
clear  as  it  is  hopeful.  It  means  the  coming  of 
Christianity  to  a  new  and  deeper  self-conscious- 
ness, a  fresh  sense  of  the  reserves  of  truth  and 
power  which  lie  in-  the  simple  but  profound 
evangel. 

If  it  be  asked  what  gain  will  accrue  from  the 
1  Christ,  p.  206. 

[20] 


The  Christocentric   View- Point 

Christologizing  of  theology,  the  answer  is,  gain  in 
the  direction  of  unity,  of  reality  and  of  progress. 


II 

That  theology  needs  unifying,  hardly  admits  of 
question.  As  theology  broadens  and  becomes 
more  comprehensive  with  enlarging  sci-  how  to  unify 
entific  knowledge,  the  need  of  a  unifying  '^***°^°^ 
principle  becomes  more  and  more  evident.  Most 
of  the  great  systems  of  theology  have  been  at- 
tempts at  unification.  They  have  failed  because 
they  have  sought  unity  in  system  rather  than  in 
personality.  Cumbrous  systems  centering  in  the 
sovereignty  of  God,  or  human  sin,  or  the  divine 
authority  of  the  Church,  or  the  Bible,  must  give 
place  to  the  unifying  and  harmonizing  personality 
of  Christ,  unfolding,  in  its  revelation  of  God,  the 
relations  and  proportions  of  truth.  "  The  principal 
content  of  Christianity,"  said  Schelling,  **  is  first, 
Christ  himself,  not  what  he  said,  but  what  he  is 
and  did."  To  limit  the  principal  content  of  Chris- 
tianity to  Christ  himself  might  seem  to  involve  a 
meager  and  restricted  theology.  On  the  contrary 
the  implications  of  Christ's  personality  are  in- 
comparably rich  and  replete.  From  him,  as  a 
center,  lines  of  suggestion  and  interpretation 
extend  in  every  direction,  Godward,  manward, 
natureward.  Toward  him  all  problems  point, 
all    paths    converge.      The    unity    which    results 

[21] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

from  making  him  central  is  a  unity  of  simplicity, 
yet  one  of  incomparable  comprehensiveness,  co- 
herence and  harmony,  a  unity  in  which  all  truths 
find  their  order,  all  legitimate  interests  their  pro- 
portionate value,  all  right  activities  their  true 
place  and  meaning. 


Ill 

The  Christologizing  of  theology  means,  also, 
the  imparting  of  new  reality  to  theology.  The 
How  to  make  disposition  on  the  part  of  theology  to 
Theology  real  ^^.j^^  j^^^  remote  scas  of  abstraction  and 

speculation  is  all  too  apparent.  It  is  this  that  has 
made  theology  "  caviare  to  the  general  " ;  this 
that  has  made  its  voice  thin  and  querulous  and 
dogmatic.  Men  ask  for  the  note  of  vitality,  of 
sincerity,  of  reality,  in  theology.  "When  the- 
ology is  made  to  square  with  life,"  said  Conan 
Doyle,  **  I  will  read  it  up."  Countless  signs  to- 
day point  to  personality  as  the  key  to  reality.  It 
is  time  that  theology  concerned  itself  less  with  the 
divine  attributes  and  the  human  will  and  the  two 
natures  of  Christ,  and  more  with  the  God  who  has 
attributes  and  the  man  who  has  a  will,  or  is  a  will, 
and  the  Christ  whose  personality  is  of  far  more 
concern  than  his  nature.  It  is  true  that  person- 
ality itself  is  the  greatest  of  all  problems  and  leads 
far  into  the  realm  of  metaphysics  and  psychology, 
and   the    courageous  mind    cannot   content  itself 


The  Christocentric   View-Point 

with  any  taboo  which  curtails  its  freedom  or  any 
tether  which  Hmits  its  range  of  thought.  But  in 
dealing  with  personality,  the  mind  grasps  a  reality 
whose  atmosphere  attends  it  in  its  most  remote 
and  difficult  adventures  into  the  mystery  which 
enfolds  all  that  is  most  real.  The  fact  and  mean- 
ing of  personality  nowhere  stand  out  so  vividly 
and  so  completely  as  in  Jesus  Christ  He  is  the 
most  real  person  of  history,  in  puissance  and 
permanence.  He  offers  the  richest  study  in  per- 
sonality that  humanity  presents.  He  is  a  real 
problem  and  not  an  academic  one.  No  question 
is  at  once  so  fascinating  and  so  vital  as  the  prob- 
lem of  his  personality.  The  theology  that  centers 
in  him  cannot  but  be  real. 


IV 

The  Christologizing  of  theology  also  promises 
progress.  If  Christianity  is  a  revelation,  progress 
must   come   through   the    unfolding   of 

,  ,  .  The  true 

Its  content,  not  through  successive  ac-    Progress  of 

Christianity 

cretions.      Right  here  lies  the  crux  of   an  unfolding 

r    f  t         1  r  ^y      '  Revelation 

the  question  of  the  absoluteness  of  Chris-    not  a  series 

*  ,  of  Advances 

tianity.  If  Christianity  simply  intro- 
duces and  inaugurates  a  new  religious  era  in  which 
the  Spirit  continually  opens  new  truth,  not  con- 
tained in  germ  in  the  original  revelation  of  the 
incarnate  Son,  then  the  claim  for  Christianity  of 
absoluteness    and    finality    must   be   relinquished. 

[^3] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  incarnation  is  central  in 
its  significance  and  inexhaustible  in  its  content,  if 
in  Christ  are  hid  all  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and 
knowledge,  then  Christianity  is  absolute  and  final, 
and  progress  consists  in  the  development  of  its 
content,  the  unfolding  of  its  implications  and  its 
applications.  Modern  thought  demands  a  choice 
between  these  alternative  conceptions,  and  the 
future  of  Christianity  depends  largely  upon  the 
decision.  This  is  the  problem  which  Robert  Brown- 
ing raises  and  resolves  in  A  Death  in  the  Desert. 
He  presents  first,  the  view  which  makes  Christianity 
a  stage  in  the  divine  revelation : 

"  I  say  that  man  was  made  to  grow,  not  stop ; 
That  help,  he  needed  once,  and  needs  no  more, 
Having  grown  but  an  inch  by,  is  withdrawn  : 
For  he  hath  new  needs,  and  new  helps  to  these. 
This  imports  solely,  man  should  mount  on  each 
New  height  in  view ;  the  help  whereby  he  mounts, 
The  ladder-rung  his  foot  has  left,  may  fall. 
Since  all  things  suffer  change  save  God  the  Truth. 
Man  apprehends  him  newly  at  each  stage 
Whereat  earth's  ladder  drops,  its  service  done; 
And  nothing  shall  prove  twice  what  once  was  proved." 

To  this  the  aged  John  replies : 
"This  might  be  pagan  teaching :  now  hear  mine. 

I  say,  the  acknowledgment  of  God  in  Christ 
Accepted  by  thy  reason,  solves  for  thee 
All  questions  in  the  earth  and  out  of  it. 
And  has  so  far  advanced  thee  to  be  wise." 


The  Christocentric   View-Point 

Here  we  have,  set  over  against  one  another,  in 
their  true  antithesis:  Christianity  relative  and 
Christianity  absolute,  Christianity  partial  ^he  aitema- 
and  Christianity  final,  progress  through  **''** 
an  advancing  revelation  and  progress  through  an 
unfolding  revelation.  If  the  former  alternative  is 
accepted,  the  personality  of  Christ  is  but  a  sec- 
ondary and  comparatively  inconsequential  factor, 
revelation  is  a  process  of  which  Christianity  is  only 
a  stage,  not  the  culmination,  and  advancing  truth 
leaves  Christ  behind.  If  the  latter  alternative  be 
the  true  one,  Christianity  is  the  absolute  religion, 
the  all-inclusive  revelation,  the  Person  of  Christ  is 
central  in  human  life,  and  progress  in  theology 
consists  in  the  Christologizing  of  doctrine,  the 
interpretation  of  the  universe  in  relation  to  the 
incarnate  Son  of  God. 


C»5] 


IV 

CHRIST   INTERPRETING  GOD 

Jesus  revealed  the  divine  Fatherhood.  The  sub- 
stance of  the  doctrine  lay  in  the  dim  disclosures 
"Our  of  earlier  revelations;  the  doctrine  itself 

^*^*'"  came  with  Jesus  Christ.  *'  In  the  dis- 
tinctive peculiarity  of  that  conception  lay  the  root 
of  all  the  new  elements  of  his  teaching,"^  says 
Wendt.  This  is  but  the  confirmation  at  the  hands 
of  thorough-going  scholarship  of  the  swift  intui- 
tion of  Renan :  "  God  conceived  immediately  as 
Father  —  this  is  the  whole  theology  of  Jesus." 
It  is  this  which  Harnack,  too,  finds  to  be  the 
essence  of  Christianity,  although  he,  also,  does 
scant  justice  to  the  personality  through  whom  the 
great  truth  came.^ 

Not  that  in  point  of  originality  this  truth  of 
divine  Fatherhood  was  absolutely  new  with  Jesus, 
Divine  ^^^  ^^  potentiality  and  in   universality 

Tnew'T^fh  it  was  ncw  with  him.  No  one  before 
with  Jesus  Jesus,  Jcw  or  pagan,  had  ever  made  it 
a  vital,  personal,  practical  reality.  No  one  before 
him  had  given  it  universal  significance  and  appli- 

1  Teachings  of  Jesus  ^  Vol.  I,  p.  184. 
*  See  the  appendix  for  a  discussion  of  the  Harnack  con- 
troversy. 

[26] 


Christ  htterpreting  God 

cation.  It  is  true  that  if  we  look  for  a  declamatory, 
dogmatic  assertion  of  the  universality  of  the  divine 
Fatherhood  in  the  words  of  Jesus  we  shall  look  in 
vain,  but  it  pervades  his  whole  teaching,  as  the  dawn 
pervades  the  sky,  silently,  serenely,  splendidly. 


Whence  did  Jesus  derive  this  truth  of  the  divine 
Fatherhood?     Partly  through  the  ancient  normal 
medium    of    social,   national,   parental  ..Noman 
instruction.     But    this   teaching   alone,  patiTeVbu?' 
though  passed  through  the  alembic  of  *^*  ^° " 
religious  genius  and  raised  to  the  highest  level  of 
the  prophet,  fails  to  account  for  the  intensity  and 
confidence  with  which  Jesus  realized  this   truth. 
Nothing  less  than  a  unique  religious  consciousness 
will  suffice.     Great  truths  do  not  originate  in  small 
souls.     They  are   not  guesses,  nor  surmises,  nor 
happy  hits.    Men  do  not  gather  grapes  from  thorns, 
nor  figs   from  thistles.     The  man  through  whom 
humanity  entered  into  its  richest  experience  of  God 
can  hardly  have   been  less   than   holy,  guileless, 
undefiled,  a  priest  forever  after  the  order  of  Mel- 
chizedek,  one  to  whom  we  may  apply  every  term 
of  endearment  and  homage  without  fear  or  con- 
straint.    From  the  character  of  his  mission,  from 
the  quality  of  his  personality  and  from  the  quiet 
confidence  of  his   own  words  concerning  himself 
{e.  g.  Matt  II:  27)  we  are  impelled  to  find  in  him 
a  sonship  peculiar  to  himself. 

[27] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 


II 

But  if  God  was  Father  to  Jesus  Christ  in  an  es- 
pecial sense  and  manner,  does  not  that  make  him 
Perfect  somcwhat   Icss   than   a   Father   to    us? 

feqmSs^er-  Rathcr,  it  IS  through  Jesus  Christ  that 
fectsonship  j^^  j^  ^  perfect  Father  to  us.  The 
relationship,  like  that  of  friendship,  is  mutual. 
The  father  who  has  an  only  son  who  is  disobedient 
and  rebellious  may  learn  through  suffering  love  a 
great  deal  of  what  fatherhood  means,  but  if  he  had 
a  son  who  was  in  perfect  concord  and  sympathy 
with  him  he  would  know  a  great  deal  more  of  the 
meaning  of  fatherhood  through  such  a  son.  It 
may  be  that  God  can  be  a  perfect  Father  to  us 
only  because  he  has  a  perfect  Son.  He  is  a  per- 
fect Father  to  us,  as  well  as  to  his  only  begotten 
Son,  —  so  far  as  our  imperfection  and  sin  permit 
the  relationship  to  be  perfect.  The  father  in  the 
parable  was  a  truer  father  to  the  prodigal  because 
he  had  an  elder  son  who  was  ever  with  him. 

With  this  truth  of  perfect  Fatherhood  through 
perfect  Sonship  there  enters  inevitably  the  real 
essence  of  the  Trinitarian  conception, 
andthcTrin-  namely,  the  existence  of  a  wealth  of 
**^  life,  of  love,  of  relationship  in  the  Being 

of  God  such  as  no  naked  numerical  unity,  no  soli- 
tude of  absoluteness,  no  closed  circle  of  existence, 
will  express.  To  assert  that  the  same  human 
qualities  —  the  best  of  them  —  which  we  find  in 

[28] 


Christ  Interpreting  God 

ourselves  are  also  in  God,  raised  to  their  perfection, 
is  to  differentiate  the  Being  of  God.  For  there 
certainly  must  be  other  qualities  in  him  besides 
these  human  ones.  And  to  differentiate  the  Being 
of  God  is  to  postulate  that  for  which  the  Trinity- 
stands.  To  secure  a  symbol  that  expresses  diver- 
sity in  unity,  that  postulates  in  God  human  as  well 
as  transcendent  attributes,  that  makes  Fatherhood 
not  a  mere  contingent  relationship  but  inherent 
in  the  divine  Selfhood  —  this  is  the  motive  of 
Trinitarianism. 

To  accept  Jesus'  presentation  of  God  as  Father 
as  final  does  not  necessarily  mean  its  acceptance 
as     ultimate.     Fatherhood    applied    to 

_      ,   .  ,  ,         *  *     ,  The  Father- 

Cjod  IS  more  than  a  metaphor  and  more    hood  of  God  a 

,  ,  .     .  ,  ,  T     .        Homologue 

than  an  analogue ;  it  is  a  homologue.  It  is 
taken  from  a  relationship  which  is  partly  physical 
and  partly  spiritual ;  therefore  it  cannot  be  ulti- 
mate. But  as  our  present  nature  and  environment 
cannot  be  wholly  spiritual,  Fatherhood  is  final  for 
the  present  stage.  No  higher  and  ampler  repre- 
sentation of  God  is  possible  to  humanity,  for  this 
term  as  appHed  to  God  seizes  and  sanctifies  our 
highest  and  holiest  consciousness.  It  remains  for 
us  not  to  seek  a  higher  conception  but  simply  to 
unfold  the  content  of  this. 

The  Fatherhood  of  God,  as  taught  by  Jesus,  in- 
volves: (i)  The  divine  nearness  and  accessibility. 
Fatherhood  implies  home  life,  and  home  life  is  a 
sphere  of  close  contact  and  free  intercourse  be- 
[^9] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

tween   parent   and   child.     Here   lies  a  complete 

and  sufficient  motive  for  prayer.     (2)  Fatherhood 

involves  a  right  over  us  which  by  the 

The  ImpHca-  ^  ' 

tionsof  very  term  is  a  natural  right.     To  assert 

Fatherhood  -^  ^ 

the  Fatherhood  of  God  does  not  define 
whether  he  is  such  by  creation,  or  derivation,  or 
in  what  manner,  but  it  does  imply  a  deep,  funda- 
mental, inherent  bond,  which  can  be  broken,  but 
cannot  be  dissevered.  (3)  Fatherhood  involves 
the  divine  love  for  us.  Jesus  never  said  "  God  is 
Love."  But  when  he  called  God  "  Our  Father," 
he  said  as  much,  and  said  it  more  concretely  and 
convincingly. 

Ill 

Jesus*  conception  of  God  as  Father  is  by  no 

means  rigid,  or  exclusive  of  other  conceptions  of 

him.     The  truth  of  God's  sovereigfnty  is 

The  Father-  .         ,     .  -  .  ,         r  , 

hood  of  God     recognized    m  the  title   Jesus   attaches 

not  an  Exclu- 
sive Concep-     to  him,    "Lord   of  heaven    and    earth." 

But  he  is  a  sovereign  Father,  rather 
than  a  fatherly  Sovereign.  His  spiritual  nature 
is  given  full  recognition  in  that  saying  —  the 
nearest  to  a  definition  of  God  which  Jesus  pre- 
sents — "  God  is  a  spirit"  Nevertheless  it  is  as 
Father  that  Jesus  loves  to  address  and  to  refer  to 
God.  It  is  significant  how  seldom  he  uses  the 
common  Old  Testament  appellations  for  God. 
Richer,  ampler,  dearer,  more  vital  to  Jesus  than 
any  other  is  the  word  Father. 
[30] 


Christ  Interpreting  God 

The  stability  and  sufficiency  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Divine  Fatherhood  is  proven  by  its  history. 
The  attempts  to  make  other  conceptions 

.  .  .         Why  the 

of  God  controllingf  have  failed.     Calvin-  truth  of  the 

Divine 

ism,  deism,  pantheism  have   had  their  Fatherhood 

*■  prevails. 

day  and  ceased  to  be ;  agnosticism  and 
monism  vainly  strive  to  supersede  Divine  Father- 
hood, which  in  spite  of  doubt  and  dismay  never  was 
so  strongly  entrenched  in  the  faith  and  thought  of 
humanity  as  to-day.  The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek. 
The  truth  of  the  Divine  Fatherhood  is  at  once  a 
judgment  of  value  and  a  judgment  of  reason ;  it  is 
both  exoteric  and  esoteric;  it  satisfies  the  heart 
and  does  not  affront  the  intellect;  it  is  neither 
anthropomorphic  nor  speculative;  it  does  not 
clothe  the  Deity  with  **  parts  and  passions "  nor 
does  it  dissolve  him  into  a  nebulous  abstraction. 
It  is  as  ample  as  it  is  definite  in  the  wealth  of  its 
meaning  for  thought  and  for  life.  Out  of  it  grows 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  but  without  exhausting 
or  superseding  it;  from  it  flow  unfailing  currents 
of  life  and  truth.  It  is  one  of  the  endless  mis- 
understandings of  the  Unrecognized  Christ  that  so 
many  persons  to-day  say  "Our  Father,"  without 
realizing  through  whom  the  revelation  came. 


[31] 


V 

CHRIST   INTERPRETING  NATURE 

Among  the  rude  representations  of  Jesus  carved 
by  a  loving  though  uncultivated  Christian  art 
The  joyous  upon  the  tombs  of  the  catacombs  of 
Saviour  Rome  is  one  which  pictures  him  as  a 

youthful  shepherd  bearing  a  recovered  lamb,  or 
kid,^  upon  his  shoulders.  The  fresh  countenance 
and  athletic  figure  serve  to  suggest  not  only  the 
saving  power  and  love  of  the  Redeemer,  but,  in- 
directly also,  a  phase  of  his  character  which  is 
coming  into  greater  recognition  as  the  perspective 
of  the  years  gives  us  a  truer  conception  of  the  rich- 
ness of  his  personality  —  that  is,  his  closeness  to 
nature.  It  is  well  that  we  have  not  only  the  infant 
innocence  and  childhood  charm  of  that  unknown 
yet  best-known  face  as  it  shone  upon  the  souls  of 
the  old  Masters,  not  only  the  various  portraits 
of  the  mature  beneficence  and  thoughtfulness  of 
Jesus  the  Teacher,  not  only  the  Ecce  Homo  and 
other  representations  of  the  face  marred  as  no 
other  man's,  but  also  an  essay  of  art  to  suggest 

^  The  fact  that  the  figure  resembles  a  kid  rather  than  a 
lamb  has  furnished  Matthew  Arnold  a  touching  motif  loi  his 
sonnet  "  The  Good  Shepherd  with  the  Kid:'' 
[32] 


Christ  Interpreting  Nature 

the  joyous  health  and  grace  of  the  youthful  Christ, 
in  the  strength  and  serenity  and  joy  of  his  redeem- 
ing might.  And  no  elaborate  work  of  art  could 
better  do  this  than  the  crude,  symbolic  shepherd 
of  the  catacombs. 

Jesus  was  not  only  the  Man  of  Sorrows  and 
acquainted  with  grief,  but  the  Man  of  Nature  and 
acquainted  with  joy.  Life  sang  as  weU  j^^^^^,  j^^^ 
as  sobbed  for  him,  and  above  its  sob  °^  Nature 
arose  its  song.  It  was  not  in  barren,  priest-ridden 
Judea  that  Jesus  was  brought  up  and  passed 
most  of  his  life,  but  in  fair,  fertile,  simple-hearted 
Galilee  where  men  lived  near  to  nature.  Those 
thirty  years  in  picturesque  Nazareth,  almost  voice- 
less so  far  as  the  Gospel  narrative  is  concerned, 
are  gradually  filling  the  reverent  imagination  with 
pictures  of  Jesus  as  the  inspired  student  of  Scrip- 
ture poring  over  the  glowing  prophecies  and 
nature-psalms  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  as  the 
free,  communing,  spirit-filled  youth,  moving  alone 
in  contemplative  joy  through  the  fields  and  over 
the  hilltops  of  Nazareth,  looking,  listening,  loving, 
drinking  in  from  the  fountain  of  nature  all  the 
sweetness,  the  purity,  the  wisdom,  and  the  glad- 
ness with  which  it  overflows.  And  afterward,  in 
the  stress  and  heat  of  those  burning  years  of  his 
ministry,  how  often  did  he  turn  aside  to  the  quiet 
mountainside,  the  restful  lakeshore,  the  secluded 
garden  for  refreshment  and  soothing  and  strength 
in  communion  with  the  Father. 
3  izz^ 


Christ  and  the  Eier7ial  Order 


The  nature-teaching  of  Jesus  is  not  less  marked 
and  characteristic  than  his  personal  attachment 
The  best  Na-  ^"^  rcsort  to  her.  Though  neither 
ture-teaching  bo^auist  nor  geologist,  biologist  nor 
ornithologist,  never  was  such  a  nature-teacher  as 
Jesus.  Picture  him  on  the  hillside  of  Galilee, 
preaching  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the  open 
heavens  above  him  and  the  fair  fields  about,  the 
soft  breeze  caressing  him,  the  dew  of  youth  upon 
his  brow,  the  light  of  love  upon  his  face,  the  poise 
of  health,  the  freedom  of  faith  and  the  great  joy  of 
his  mission  upon  him.  Of  what  does  he  speak? 
Of  life  and  duty  and  trust  and  freedom  from  care, 
while  the  skies  bend  down  in  benediction  and  the 
breeze  whispers  Yea  and  the  flowers  nod  a  gentle 
Amen,  No  part  of  this  sweet  sermon  which  the 
summer  winds  of  Galilee  have  wafted  to  us  across 
the  years,  is  more  dear  to  the  heart  of  Christen- 
dom than  that  in  which,  with  the  swift  seizure  of  a 
divine  insight,  Jesus  unfolds  the  very  heart  of  the 
scene  about  him  in  the  words:  "Behold  the  birds 
of  the  heaven,  that  they  sow  not,  neither  do  they 
reap,  nor  gather  into  barns;  and  your  heavenly 
Father  feedeth  them.  .  .  .  Consider  the  lih'es  of 
the  field,  how  they  grow ;  they  toil  not,  neither  do 
they  spin :  yet  I  say  unto  you,  that  even  Solonlon 
in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these." 
Here  is  nature-teaching  that  has  no  parallel.  So 
long  as  birds  fly,  this  lesson  will  fly  with  them ; 

[34] 


Christ  Intrepreting  Nature 

so  long  as  flowers  bloom,  this  word  will  bloom 
in  them.  Nor  does  this  passage  stand  alone. 
Throughout  Jesus'  teaching  run  the  roots  of  nature- 
symbolism  and  analogy,  holding  it  fast  to  reality 
and  supplying  it  with  unfading  verdure  and  beauty. 
Aphorism,  precept,  parable,  twine  about  some  fa- 
miliar nature  fact  which  lends  form  and  support, 
and  often,  in  Jesus'  use  of  it,  seems  itself  a  part  of 
the  greater  spiritual  truth  which  it  symbolizes. 

II 

But,  according  to  the  Gospels,  a  still  more  inti- 
mate sympathy  and  fellowship  than  this  existed 
between  Jesus  and  nature.  Nature  re-  Miracles  the 
sponds  to  minds  that  understand  and  Nlt'u"e^to°^ 
love  her — almost  miraculously.  Finer  P<^''s°"^'»'y 
laws,  subtler  adaptations,  secret  sympathies,  flow 
forth  from  her  to  meet  the  seer,  be  he  scientist, 
artist  or  poet.  It  would  be  strange,  indeed,  if  she 
had  made  no  unusual  response  to  Jesus.  Given 
a  personality  whose  insight  and  purity  and  force 
were  such  as  to  change  the  whole  course  of  the 
life  and  thought  of  the  world,  and  what  must  have 
been  its  legitimate  and  transforming  power  over 
nature !  Marked,  indeed,  would  be  the  discrep- 
ancy if  He  who  had  power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins, 
could  not  also  say  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy,  "  Take 
up  thy  bed,  and  walk";  if  He  who  could  cast  out 
seven  devils  could  not  also  heal  the  fever-stricken 
body. 

[35] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

The  personality  of  Jesus  is  the  greater  miracle, 
and  carries  the  other  miracles  with  it,  or  (if  any 
The  greater  ^6  offended)  stands  without  them.  To 
Miracle  explain  the  miracles  away  is  quite  as 

difficult  as  to  explain  them.  Of  almost  all,  if  not 
all  the  miracles  of  Jesus,  it  is  coming  to  be  seen 
that  the  more  they  are  studied  the  more  closely 
do  they  cling  to  his  personality  and  refuse  to  be 
torn  away.  For  long,  theology  strove  to  make  use 
of  miracles  in  precisely  the  way  that  Jesus  for- 
bade, as  signs,  evidences.  As  such  they  have  been 
defeated  by  science  and  have  come  to  naught. 
But  the  moment  we  begin  with  the  personality  of 
Jesus,  cease  defending  miracles  as  infractions  of 
law,  and  relate  them  to  those  subtle  mental  and 
spiritual  forces  to  which  nature  so  swiftly  responds, 
science  raises  her  embargo  and  abandons  her  hos- 
tility. The  miracles  of  Jesus  attest  the  accord  of  na- 
ture and  spirit.  They  are  notes  of  a  deeper  harmony 
which  underlies  apparent  confusion  and  discord. 

Ill 

The  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  cannot  be  a  revela- 
tion and  leave  us  wholly  in  the  dark  concerning 
Jesus  trust-  ^^^  rcHgious  mcauiugs  of  nature.  If 
hisNa^Jre-  Jcsus  has  no  deep  spiritual  insights 
teaching  j^^^^  naturc  his  "  credentials "  ^  are 
lacking.  If  his  nature-teaching  is  wrong,  we  can- 
not trust  him  fully  in  his  revelation  of  God  and 
*  Ecce  Homoy  Chap.  V. 

[36] 


Christ  Interpreting  Nature 

his  understanding  of  man.  To  make  him  less  than 
central  in  revelation  is,  in  the  end,  to  •  displace 
Christianity;  to  make  him  central  requires  that 
he  be  trustworthy  in  his  interpretation  of  nature 
as  well  as  of  God  and  man.  "  His  was  a  childlike 
understanding  of  nature,"  it  is  said,  **  possible  only 
at  a  period  before  science  had  discovered  to  us 
the  true  order  and  understanding  of  nature."  But 
it  may  be  that  the  narrowly  scientific  and  un- 
believing are,  after  all,  the  childish,  and  he,  the 
childlike,  the  trustful,  the  far-visioned,  the  truer 
scientist,  —  in  the  science  of  ultimate  truth.  His 
teaching  was  not  simply  a  reflection  of  that  of 
his  day.  It  was  not  made  up  of  current  ideas, 
scientific  or  theological.  It  was  his  own.  While  it 
grew  out  of  the  ideas  and  conceptions  of  his  time, 
it  is  on  a  higher  level,  a  universal  plane,  where  no 
scientific  or  theological  mutations  can  touch  it.  It 
has  the  note  of  the  timeless  and  the  universal. 

Not  that  Jesus'  interpretation  of  nature  is  com- 
plete and  exhaustive  on  all  sides.  On  the  purely 
scientific  side  of  nature  he  did  not  The  failing 
touch;  on  the  esthetic  side  he  did  fSflaXTide 
not  dwell ;  it  was  the  moral,  the  spirit-  °^  ^**"" 
ual  interpretation  of  nature,  as  it  stands  related  to 
the  life  of  the  soul,  with  which  he  was  concerned. 
And  here  we  may  accept  his  word  as  final.  What 
is  that  word  ?  It  is  that  nature  is  God's —  full  of 
his  thought  and  of  his  love.  If  it  be  said  that,  in 
this  optimistic  and  providential  view  of  nature,  he 

[37] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

ignored  entirely  that  darker  side  which  modern 
science  has  brought  out  in  such  terrible  distinct- 
ness, the  answer  is  that  he  did  not  ignore  the 
darker  side  but  saw  it  transformed  and  absorbed 
in  the  light  of  the  All-Father's  love.  The  falling 
sparrow  is  Jesus'  interpretation  of  the  evil  and 
suffering  of  nature.  Explain  the  pain  of  nature 
he  docs  not,  but  interpret  it  he  does.  **  Not  with- 
out your  Father  "  is  a  word  with  larger  meaning 
than  has  yet  been  taken  from  it.  All-embracing 
compassion,  all-wise  beneficence,  all-inclusive  ulti- 
mate justice  and  well-being  are  in  this  word.  It 
goes  further  and  deeper  than  science  ventures  to 
go,  or  can  go. 

Few  and  simple  as  are  Jesus*  words  concerning 
the  meaning  of  nature,  the  light  which  they  throw 
upon  nature  will  never  cease  to  invest  it.  Analyze 
our  modern  nature  trust  and  joy,  and  it  will  be 
found  to  rest  ultimately  largely  upon  Christ's 
teaching.  Humanity  will  come,  more  and  more, 
to  see  nature,  not  only  through  his  eyes,  but 
through  himself,  through  the  undivided  revela- 
tion which  he  brought,  —  or  rather  which  he  was 
and  is,  —  to  the  world. 


[38] 


VI 

CHRIST   INTERPRETING   MAN 

In  order  to  understand  any  organic  species  it  is 
necessary  to  know  it  in  its  origin,  its  development, 
and  its  maturity.  Most  emphatically  is  Humanity 
this  true  of  humanity.  It  is  not  enough  thrlfJIh  a"^ 
to  trace  its  origin  and  its  development;  ^"'^o^yp^ 
we  should  see  it  also  in  its  perfection.  Anthropol- 
ogy alone  is  insufficient  to  explain  man ;  anthro- 
pology and  history  are  insufficient;  we  need  also 
revelation.  Since  we  cannot  see  the  future  man, 
the  final  product  of  social  evolution,  by  him  to 
know  what  manhood  is,  we  require  a  Prototype,  a 
Forerunner,  an  Ensample  by  whom  to  interpret 
ourselves  and  our  race.  But  is  this  possible?  Is 
not  the  perfect  man  impossible  save  as  the  product 
of  a  perfect  society?  Yes,  unless  he  enter  the  race 
from  above,  as  a  sent  and  supernatural  being,  **  trail- 
ing clouds  of  glory  from  God  who  is  his  home." 


Here,  then,  we  meet  our  chief  problem :  Can  we 
find  reasonable  cause  and  evidence  for  the  tran- 
scending of  evolution,  in  the  case  of  Christ?     In 

[39] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

other  words,  is  revelation  consonant  with  evolution? 
If  we  were  obliged  to  find  in  Jesus  the  sole  instance 

of  departure  from  a  rigid  law  of  devel- 
and  Evolu-      opmeut,  the  strain  upon  faith  would  be 

severe ;  but  such  is  not  the  case.  The 
law  of  evolution  grows  more  flexible  as  it  reaches 
the  higher  ranks  of  life.  Other  forces  enter 
and  act  with  it.  There  is  at  least  one  phenome- 
non which  is  absolutely  inexplicable  by  evolution 
alone,  —  the  fact  of  genius.  The  great  souls 
that  have  enlightened  and  enriched  humanity  can 
by  no  means  be  explained  simply  as  the  prod- 
ucts of  racial  development  They  enter  the  race 
mysteriously,  supernally,  royally.  Genius  cannot 
be  produced  as  a  new  rose  is,  by  experiment  and 
culture  ;  its  comes  as  a  gift  from  above.  No  form 
The  Mystery  ^^  cvolution  caH  account  for  Raphael 
of  Genius  ^^  Shakcspcare.  Ancestry  fails  to  solve 
the  benign  mystery  of  genius.  We  are  in  a  realm 
where  natural  selection  and  hereditary  instinct  are 
puerile  futilities.  The  law  of  heredity  acts,  but  it 
is  transcended.  The  supernatural  absorbs,  molds, 
transfigures  the  natural  and  endows  it  with  a  power 
and  radiance  that  hold  us  awestruck  and  spell- 
bound. By  this  token,  the  gift  of  genius,  we  know 
beyond  a  peradventure  that  this  world  is  ruled  and 
endowed  from  above  and  not  from  beneath  or 
within.  Evolution  is  God's  process  —  beautiful 
and  fruitful  —  but  it  is  not  his  only  process.  He 
is  not  limited  to  one  method.     Evolution  and  rev- 

[40] 


Christ  Interpreting  Man 

elation  are  not  mutually  exclusive  terms.  With 
the  advent  of  self-consciousness  evolution  yields 
to  a  higher  law.  "  Resident  forces  "  are  supple- 
mented by  non-resident  ideals.  An  amoeba  does 
not  need  an  ideal  before  him  in  order  to  stimulate 
him  to  perfect  development,  but  a  man  does.  Con- 
scious development  cannot  proceed  without  a  goal, 
an  ideal,  —  a  Christ. 

Does  this  mean  that  Christ  is  simply  a  religious 
genius  ?  Yes,  and  No !  Like  every  other  genius 
he  is  a  gift  of  God  to  men  —  the  Gift  of  j^sus  the 
God  to  men.  He  so  far  transcends  all  Q^^^o^God 
other  men  in  goodness  and  in  greatness  as  to  con- 
stitute a  class  by  himself,  in  which,  by  virtue  of  his 
pecuHar  vocation,  he  is  the  sole  possible  member. 
This  gives  him  a  relation  both  to  God  and  to  hu- 
manity which  had  he  been  less  than  divine  he  could 
not  have  fulfilled.  His  deity  is  not  above  his  hu- 
manity nor  alongside  it,  but  in  and  through  his 
humanity.  By  virtue  of  his  perfect  humanity  he  is 
the  revelation,  not  only  of  God,  but  of  humanity, 
—  the  God-man.  The  individual  can  see  himself  in 
the  whole  splendor  and  scope  of  his  possibilities 
only  in  Christ ;  and  the  highest  vision  of  society  is 
that  of  a  corporate  body  made  up  of  persons  striv- 
ing toward  the  Christ-life  and  thus  in  their  common 
life  realizing  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  It  is  only 
through  Christ  that  a  man  can  know  himself,  his 
brother  man,  or  the  humanity  of  which  both 
partake. 

[41] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 


II 

The   first   and    greatest   revelation    that   Christ 
makes  to  mankind,  then,  is  the  revelation  of  its  pos- 
sibilities.     What  can   a  man   become, 

Christ  re-  , 

veals  our         what  Can  w^;/ becomc  ?    The  answer  hes 

Possibilities       .  ^i     •  rr-i 

m  the  Christ.  There  have  been  other 
partial  answers.  Every  great  and  good  man  is  such 
—  Gautama,  Confucius,  Socrates.  But  the  com- 
plete answer  is  found  only  in  Christ.  The  sages, 
heroes,  prophets  are  but  broken  lights  of  him,  and 
he  is  more  than  they.  When  Pilate  said.  Behold, 
the  man,  he  unwittingly  acted  as  spokesman  to  the 
race.  Mankind  has  looked,  and  beneath  the  crown 
of  thorns  has  seen  so  regal  a  brow,  behind  the 
purple  robe  so  great  a  heart  of  sacrificial  love,  as 
to  make  all  who  receive  him  kings  and  priests  unto 
God.  In  this  Man  every  man  sees  his  own  man- 
hood transfigured  and  crowned.  His  is  a  manhood 
magnetic  with  spiritual  currents,  vital  with  com- 
municative puissance.  The  moment  a  man  sees 
Christ,  he  sees  himself  in  a  new  light.  Undreamt- 
of possibilities  flash  upon  him.  He  is  a  new  crea- 
ture, old  things  are  passed  away,  behold  all  things 
are  become  new.  In  an  old  house  in  Bruges  there 
is  this  simple  motto:  "There  is  more  in  me." 
Beholding  Christ  every  man  reads  that  motto  "  writ 
in  living  characters."  It  is  true  that  seeing  Christ 
each  sees  One  forever  and  forever  beyond  him, 
but  the  humanity  is  so  warm  and  real,  the  splendor 

[42] 


Christ  Interpreting  Man 

so  winsome  and  impelling  that  we  are  attracted 
and  not  repelled  by  the  superiority.  He  is,  as 
Dr.  Gordon  calls  him,  the  Flying  Goal.  It  is  only 
by  poetic  license  that  we  can  speak  of  becoming 
Christs ;  but  to  be  like  him  —  that  is  the  result  of 
seeing  him  as  he  is.  This  is  Spurgeon's  account 
of  his  conversion,  swift,  simple,  sufficient:  "I 
looked  at  Jesus,  and  Jesus  looked  at  me,  and  we 
were  one  forever."  In  that  look  the  great  preacher 
saw  his  own  possibilities  hidden  in  Christ's  excel- 
lences. Such  an  unveiling  is  there,  for  all  who  will 
look. 

Through  Christ  man  sees,  also,  the  counterpart  of 
his  possibility,  that  is,  his  sinfulness.  On  one' side 
of  the  coin  of  humanity  is  stamped  the 

.  Christ 

ima^e  of  the  Kine^:  on  the  reverse  side  reveals  our 

°  ^  '  Sinfulness 

that  of  a  distortion  almost  too  devilish 
to  be  human.  The  first  possibility  could  not  be, 
without  the  second.  Christ  reveals  both,  —  the 
one  in  himself,  the  other  in  his  anti-self.  In  see- 
ing his  possible  goodness  in  Christ  a  man  sees 
also  his  possible  evil,  and  somewhere  between  the 
two  his  own  present  sinfulness.  If  I  had  not  come 
.  .  .  unto  them^  they  had  not  had  sin.  Sense  of  sin 
is  independent  of  Christ ;  sensitiveness  to  sin  comes 
with  him.  If  Christ  were  not  lifted  up  before  men 
as  he  is,  it  is  probable  that  the  same  fearful  moral 
callousness  would  recur  that  cursed  the  pre-Chris- 
tian world.  Man  does  not  see  himself  as  he  is,  or 
as  he  might  be,  unless  he  sees  himself  also  as  sinful. 

[43] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

Doubtless  the  fact  of  sinfulness  has  been  abnor- 
mally exaggerated  in  many  periods  of  the  life  of 
the  Church,  but,  if  so,  it  has  been  only  by  de- 
parting from  that  normal,  healthful  but  poignant 
sense  of  sinfulness  created  by  the  contact  with  the 
real  Christ. 

Ill 

Once  more,  Christ  interprets  man  to  himself  by 
revealing  to  him  the  true  proportions  and  harmonies 
Christ  reveals  of  his  being.  The  danger  of  a  one- 
met^'Strue  sidcd  development  is  one  of  the  chiefest 
*"  °°  perils  of  a  complex  civilization.     This 

tendency  Christ  perpetually  and  benignly  restrains. 
The  physical,  the  intellectual,  the  cultural,  each 
clamors  for  complete  control.  The  paths  of  in- 
vitation open  to  the  indulgent  development  of  one 
side  of  our  nature.  And  when  one  has  given  free 
rein  to  such  a  specializing  until  he  has  become 
a  scientific,  or  literary,  or  musical  monomaniac, 
all  distorted  in  one  direction,  all  dwarfed  in  others, 
and  then  one  day  Jesus  appears  across  his  path 
and  he  looks  up  and  sees  the  splendid  complete- 
ness and  symmetry  of  his  manhood,  his  own  crip- 
pled life  starts  forth  into  distressing  shapelessness 
and  incompleteness! 

It  is  in  upholding  the  supremacy  of  the  moral 
and  spiritual  nature  that  Christ  most  persistently 
corrects  our  inner  chaos  and  restores  harmony 
and  balance  to  our  feverish  and  incoherent  lives. 

[44] 


Christ  Interpreting  Man 

With  unerring  insight  and  firmness  he  puts  the 
ethical  and  reh'gious  ideal  of  life  first  and  then 
finds  a  place  for  all  real  and  worthful  interests  in 
subordination  to  this.  This  order  is  in  his  teaching 
because  it  is  first  in  himself.  Nothing  is  more  char- 
acteristic of  Christ  than  the  superb  poise,  both  of 
his  character  and  of  his  conduct.  Sublimity  and 
sweetness,  strength  and  grace,  thought  and  feeling, 
blend  to  make  his  life  a  perfect  symphony.  And, 
witnessing,  we  know  that  this  is  what  man  was 
meant  to  be.  Thus  the  Christ  interprets  and 
harmonizes  human  nature. 

IV 

It  is  as  unreasonable  to  study  man  and  leave  the 
Man  out,  as  to  study  history  and  leave  Christianity 
out.  Christ  has  woven  himself  into  the  Christ  shapes 
very  mind  structure  of  humanity.  Psy-  «""^^"«^» 
chology  tells  us  that  it  is  impossible  for  a  person 
to  read  a  book  without  being  a  somewhat  different 
being  for  it.^  Much  less  is  it  possible  to  hear  the 
Christ  story  without  being  changed  by  it.  And 
when  an  entire  civilization  is  saturated  with  the 
Christ  as  its  acknowledged  Ideal,  he  must  enter, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  into  all  thinking  and 
doing,  with  a  force  that  it  is  impossible  to  measure. 
Individuals  reject  him,  but  humanity  has  received 
him.  Only  through  him  can  we  know  ourselves  — 
our  possibilities,  our  imperfection,  our  true  harmony 
1  See  James'  Psychology^  Vol.  I,  p.  5. 

[45] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

of  being.  Man  as  seen  through  evolution  alone  is 
a  racial  epiphenomenon,  a  freak,  a  nondescript; 
as  seen  through  the  average  man  he  is  a  bundle 
of  contradictions,  **  a  groveller  on  the  earth  and  a 
gazer  at  the  sky";  as  seen  through  Christ  he  is 
a  child  of  God,  an  heir  of  the  eternal,  a  unit  of 
realizable  possibilities.  The  light  of  the  Incarna- 
tion falls  upon  the  entire  nature  and  history  of  man. 
It  lights  up  the  dull  eyes  of  our  low-browed  simian 
ancestor  with  the  promise  of  immortal  progress 
and  attainment ;  it  falls  upon  the  slowly  develop- 
ing, plodding  savage  and  makes  his  every  upward 
step  significant;  it  falls  upon  the  most  hopeless 
individual  member  of  the  race  and  reveals  him  as 
a  brother  of  the  imperial  Christ  and  capable  of 
illimitable  progress. 


[46] 


VII 

THE   WORSHIP   OF   CHRIST 

It  concerns  us  to  ask:  What  light  is  thrown  by 
the  modern  Christocentric  theology  upon  the 
much  debated  question  concerning  the  worship  of 
Christ? 

I 

The  aversion  of  the  older  Unitarian  school  to 
the  worship  of  Christ  received  its  most  representa- 
tive  expression    in    Emerson's    Sermon 
on  The  Lord's  Supper,  in  which  he  said :   the  worship 

.«  T  ,  '        .         .  ,   .  ofChrist 

"I  am  so  much  a  Unitarian  as  this: 
that  I  believe  the  human  mind  can  admit  but  one 
God,  and  that  every  effort  to  pay  religious  hom- 
age to  more  than  one  being,  goes  to  take  away  all 
right  ideas.  ...  In  the  act  of  petition  the  soul 
stands  alone  with  God,  and  Jesus  is  no  more  pres- 
ent to  your  mind  than  your  brother  or  your  child. 
But  is  Jesus  not  called  in  Scripture  the  Mediator? 
He  is  the  Mediator  in  that  only  sense  in  which 
possibly  any  being  can  mediate  between  God  and 
man  —  that  is,  an  instructor  of  man.  He  teaches 
us  how  to  become  like  God.  And  a  true  disciple 
of  Jesus  will  receive  the  light  he  gives  most  thank- 

[47] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

fully,  but  the  thanks  he  offers,  and  which  an 
exalted  being  will  accept,  are  not  compliments, 
commemorations,  but  the  use  of  that  instruction." 

How  bare  and  cold  and  un-Emersonian  this 
reads,  in  our  day  of  a  broader  and  richer  concep- 
Theodore  ^^^^  °^  Christ !  Indeed  the  sermon 
Parker  throughout  has  not  a  single  suggestion 

of  the  true  Emerson.  In  contrast  with  its  nega- 
tive and  chilling  plaintiveness  Theodore  Parker's 
indiscriminating  heartiness  is  refreshing.  "Jesus 
made  a  revolution  in  the  idea  of  God,  and  himself 
went  up  and  took  the  throne  of  the  world.  That 
was  a  step  in  progress,  and,  if  called  upon  to  wor- 
ship the  Jehovah  of  the  Old  Testament,  or  Jesus 
of  Nazareth,  a  plain  man,  as  he  is  painted  in  the 
first  three  Gospels,  I  should  not  hesitate ;  I  should 
worship  my  brother,  for  in  the  highest  qualities 
this  actual  man  is  superior  to  men's  conception  of 
God.  .  .  .  Let  us  not  be  harsh,  let  us  not  blame 
men  for  worshiping  the  creature  more  than  the 
Creator.  They  saw  the  Son  higher  than  the 
Father,  and  they  did  right.  The  popular  adora- 
tion of  Jesus  to-day  is  the  best  thing  in  the 
ecclesiastical  religion."  And  yet,  with  customary 
outspokenness,  he  proceeds  immediately  to  add, 
"  But  I  do  not  believe  in  the  perfection  of  Jesus." 

The  contrasted  attitude  of  these  two  devout  and 
virile  thinkers  upon  this  subject  can  be  understood 
only  as  one  traces  it  to  the  contrasted  tempera- 
ments and  view-points  of  the  two  men.     Emerson, 

[48] 


The  Worship  of  Christ 

the  transcendentalist,  meditative,  mystical,  wor- 
ships the  God  of  nature,  the  Absolute  ;  Parker,  the 
humanist,  the  preacher,  the  reformer,  worships 
God  in  his  human  attributes,  his  Fatherhood,  his 
Motherhood,  his  Brotherhood.  To  the  latter, 
therefore,  Jesus  representing  the  human  side  of 
God  appeals  much  more  strongly. 


II 

Turning  to  William  E.  Channing  we  find  his 
position  nearer  to  that  of  Parker  than  to  that  of 
Emerson.  In  his  Baltimore  Ordination 
Sermon  Channing  said:  ''We  also  think  EiieryChan- 
that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  injures 
devotion,  not  only  by  joining  to  the  Father  other 
objects  of  worship,  but  by  taking  from  the  Father 
the  supreme  affection  which  is  his  due,  and  trans- 
ferring it  to  the  Son.  .  .  .  Men  want  an  object  of 
worship  like  themselves,  and  the  great  secret  of 
idolatry  lies  in  this  propensity.  A  God,  clothed 
in  our  form  and  feeling  our  wants  and  sorrows, 
speaks  to  our  weak  nature  more  strongly  than 
a  Father  in  heaven,  a  pure  spirit,  invisible  and 
unapproachable,  save  by  the  reflecting  and  puri- 
fied mind.  .  .  .  We  believe,  too,  that  this  worship 
of  Jesus,  though  attractive,  is  not  most  fitted  to 
spiritualize  the  mind,  that  it  awakens  transport 
rather  than  that  deep  veneration  of  the  moral  per- 
fections of  God  which  is  the  essence  of  piety." 
4  [49] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

It  is  difficult  for  us  in  the  wider  outlook  and 

more  human  atmosphere  of  this  twentieth  century 

to  realize  the  point  of  view  of  one  who 

What  is  more  -  i         i   i  •  ir 

moral  than      thus  sceks  to  school  himsclf  away  from 

Love  ?  .  ^ 

the  worship  of  the  more  human  and 
lovable  attributes  of  the  Deity  to  those  of  "a 
pure  spirit,  invisible  and  unapproachable,  save  by 
the  reflecting  and  purified  mind."  When  Chan- 
ning  goes  on  to  speak  of  the  "  moral  perfections  " 
of  God  he  must  mean,  not  the  highest  moral 
perfections,  for  those  are  the  very  qualities  re- 
vealed in  Christ,  sympathy,  sacrifice,  love,  but 
the  less  central,  less  '*  attractive,"  perfections,  — 
justice,  holiness,  impeccability.  To  imply  that 
these  are  more  "  moral "  than  love  is  to  impeach 
the  very  heart  of  morality,  as  well  as  of  God.  A 
Unitarian  is  surely  the  last  Christian  of  whom  we 
should  expect  this. 

The  question,  after  all,  is  this :  Is  the  heart  of 
God  essentially  human,  —  in  the  highest,  noblest 
The  Real  scnsc  of  humanity?  In  other  words,  is 
i««*e  love  central   in  the  divine  Being?      If 

so,  Christ  is  so  true  and  sufficient  a  revelation  of 
him  that  we  may  accept  his  words:  "He  that 
hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father,"  and  draw 
from  them  their  natural  corollary  —  he  that  wor- 
ships the  Son  worships  the  Father. 

It  is  impossible  to  worship  Christ  without  wor- 
shiping God.  Herein  lies  the  solution  of  the  whole 
difficulty  —  which  is  purely  academic  and  not  real, 
[so] 


The  Worship  of  Christ 

except  when  it  arises  from  a  merely  humanitarian 
conception  of  Christ.  So  long  as  Unitarianism 
can  keep  its  conception  of  Christ  down  at  the  level 
of  ordinary  humanity  it  is  entirely  self-consistent 
in  not  worshiping  him  ;  but  the  moment  he  escapes 
these  limitations  (as  he  often  does  with  Unitari- 
ans), he  inevitably  calls  out  the  worship  which  his 
perfect  Sonship  really  makes  equivalent  to  worship 
of  the  Father.  Fatherhood  is  impossible  without 
Sonship.  Imperfect  Sonship  implies  imperfect 
Fatherhood.  Perfect  Fatherhood  cannot  be  un- 
derstood without  perfect  Sonship.  If  Jesus  had 
been  no  more,  no  higher,  than  any  other  son  of 
God  we  should  not  have  come  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  divine  Fatherhood  that  we  have  in  Chris- 
tianity. To  worship  Christ  is  to  worship  perfect 
Fatherhood  through  perfect  Sonship. 

Ill 

Seeing  in  Jesus  none  other  than  a  good  man, 
it  is  not  strange  that  Emerson  protested  against 
worshiping  him  and  administering  the 

.  1^    1  1  .     ,  ,  1        1  •  The  Secret  of 

service  which  so  highly  exalts  him  ;  nor  chanmng-s 
that  Theodore  Parker,  while  condoning 
the  worship  of  Christ  in  others,  rejected  it  for  him- 
self. It  is  strange,  however,  that  Channing,  who 
held  so  high  a  conception  of  Jesus  that  he  could 
say,  "  We  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  was  the  most 
glorious  display,  expression  and  representative  of 
God  to  mankind,  so  that  seeing  and  knowing  him, 
[S'] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

we  see  and  know  the  invisible  Father,"  should  have 
objected  to  the  worship  of  Christ.  It  can  be  ex- 
plained only  as  arising  from  his  extreme  aversion 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity ^  which  he  understood 
only  as  it  was  so  sadly  misrepresented  in  the  New 
England  theology  of  his  day.  It  was  Frederick 
Robertson  who  said  of  Channing,  **  I  should  be  very 
glad,  if  half  of  those  who  recognize  the  hereditary 
claims  of  the  Son  of  God  to  worship,  bowed  down 
before  his  moral  dignity  with  an  adoration  half 
as  profound  or  a  love  half  as  enthusiastic  as 
Dr.  Channing's." 

The  discussion  concerning  the  deity  of  Christ 
has  passed  into  a  distinctly  new  phase  in  the 
The  Ritsch-  Ritschlian  theology.  Starting  from  the 
lian  Attitude  vantage-ground  of  Luther,  who,  it  is 
held,  regarded  confidence  in  Christ  as  the  true 
confession  of  Christ,  the  Ritschlian  school,  going 
forth  with  its  famous  divining-rod,  Worth-jndg- 
ment,  finds  the  spring  of  Christ's  true  divinity  in 
his  sinless  and  perfect  character  and  his  perfect 
fulfilment  of  his  unique  vocation  in  redemption. 
Ritschl  entitles  Jesus  "  the  perfect  self-revelation 
of  God  "  and  says  of  him:  "  He  is  that  magnitude 
in  the  world  in  whose  self-end  God  makes  his  own 
eternal  self-end  in  an  original  manner  operative  and 
manifest."  ^  "  The  Deity  of  Christ  can  only  be  ex- 
pressed by  saying  that  the  mind  and  will  of  the 
Everlasting  God  stand  before  us  in  the  historically 
1  The  Ritschlian  Theolo^,  Garvie,  p.  280. 

[52] 


The  Worship  of  Christ 

active  will  of  this  man,"  ^  writes  Hermann.  And 
again,  "  We  first  know  what  Divine  Nature  is 
when  we  apprehend  it  in  Christ."  To  the  same 
effect  Kaftan  declares :  "  That  Jesus  Christ  is  God 
means  that  in  him  we  have  a  complete  revelation 
of  God."  2 

That  this  representative  relation  of  Christ  to 
God  and  to  men  amounts  to  actual  deity  may  be 
doubted.  But  that  it  warrants  worship  of  him  can 
hardly  be  questioned.  For  as  Hermann  affirms: 
"  We  stand  thus  toward  Christ  in  a  relation  of  the 
greatest  conceivable  dependence." 

Whatever  the  limitations  and  inconsistencies  of 
the  Ritschlian  school,  it  is  firmly  grounded  and 
sincere  in  its  devotion  to  Christ  and  in  its  as- 
cription to  him  of  virtual  deity.  The  difference 
between  the  Ritschlian  conception  of  Christ's  deity 
and  that  of  the  older  Unitarianism  represented  by 
Channing,  is  this :  In  order  to  ascribe  deity  to 
Christ  the  early  Unitarians  thought  it  necessary 
to  limit  and  circumscribe  his  humanity,  whereas 
Ritschlianism  conceives  that  perfect  and  exalted 
humanity  is,  in  so  far,  deity. 

The  natural  inclination  of  the  heart,  won  by  the 
grace  and  glory  of  Jesus,  to  pay  homage  to  him 
who  so  uniquely  reveals  the  Father,  involves  no 
real  inconsistency,  much  less  any  disloyalty  to  the 
Supreme  Being.     The  sincere  worship  of  the  true 

^  Communiofi  with  Gody  p.  138. 
^  Doginatiky  p.  419. 

[S3] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

Christ  includes  within  itself  the  worship  of  the 
Father.  It  is  worship  of  the  Father  in  the  Son. 
Hewhowor-  ^hc  worship  directed  to  Jesus  finds 
wSIhi^t?he  its  ultimate  object  and  explanation 
Father  also  j^^  ^j^^  Eternal  Christ,  the  Logos,  in- 
carnated in  Jesus.  As  such  it  is  worship  of 
the  Revealing  God,  the  Father  manifested  in  the 
Son. 


[54] 


PART   II 

ASPECTS  OF  CHRIST 


"  In  him  was  life ;  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men." 

"  Many  man  for  Christes  love 
Was  martired  in  Romayne 
£r  any  Christendom  was  knowe  there 
Or  any  cros  honoured." 

—  OldEngnsh  Verse. 

"All  who  are  rational  beings  are  partakers  of  the  word,  that  is,  of 
reason,  and  by  this  means  bear  certain  seeds  implanted  within  them  of 
w'sdom  and  justice,  which  is  Christ."  —  Origen,  De  Principia. 

"  The  very  God !  think,  Abib ;  dost  thou  think  ? 
So,  the  All-Great,  were  the  All-Loving  too  — 
So,  through  the  thunder  comes  a  human  voice 
Saying,  "  O  heart  I  made,  a  heart  beats  here  I  " 

—  Robert  Browning,  An  Epistle. 

"Christ  is  lost,  like  the  piece  of  money  in  the  parable;  but  where?  In 
thy  house,  that  is,  in  thy  soul.  Thou  needest  not  run  to  Rome  or  Jeru- 
salem to  seek  him.  He  sleepeth  in  thy  heart,  as  he  did  in  the  ship; 
awaken  him  with  the  loud  cry  of  thy  desire.  Howbeit,  I  believe  that  thou 
sleepest  oftener  to  him  than  he  to  thee."  —  Walter  Hilton,  The  Scale 
of  Perfection. 


VIII 

THE    HUMAN    CHRIST 

So  far  as  the  modern  emphasis  upon  the  Historic 
Christ  is  in  the  interest  of  his  true  humanity 
the  motive  is  unimpeachable.  Unless  a  Human 
Jesus  is  understood  and  felt  to  be  chmt  needed 
deeply,  really,  richly  human,  he  can  have  no 
lasting  and  saving  hold  upon  humanity.  What- 
ever tends  to  actualize  and  vivify  Christ's  human- 
ity, therefore,  may  be  hailed  as  wholesome  and 
true.  But  the  question  is :  Is  the  historic  Christ, 
as  such,  and  alone,  the  most  truly  and  wholly 
human  Christ?  On  the  contrary,  we  hold  that  too 
narrow  and  exclusive  attention  upon  the  historic 
Christ  obscures  and  limits  his  real  humanity. 

I 

There  are  two  distinct  and  contrary  meanings 
bound  up  in  the  term  "  human  "  as  we  commonly 
What  is  it  to  employ  it.  The  first  is  that  of  the 
be  Human?  weakness,  incompetency,  imperfection 
of  which  we  are  conscious  as  attaching  to  our 
human  nature.  This  meaning  appears  in  such 
common  phrases  as  "to  err  is  human,"  "human 
follies,"  "  human  nature."  On  this  side  of  our 
human  nature   there  is  enough   that   is   discour- 

[57] 


Christ  and  the  Eternat  Order 

aging,  weak,  pitiful.  It  is  human  to  be  selfish; 
human  to  be  sensual;  human  to  be  indifferent, 
hateful,  cruel.  The  other  hemisphere  of  our  hu- 
man nature  is  as  bright  as  this  side  is  dark,  as 
noble  and  beautiful  as  this  side  is  ignoble  and 
unholy.  To  our  humanity  belong,  also,  dignity, 
strength,  divineness.  It  is  human  to  aspire,  to 
rise,  to  attain,  to  bless,  to  sympathize,  to  love. 

Now  it  is  impossible  to  think  of  these  higher 
qualities  of  our  humanity  without  seeing  that  while 
they  are  ours,  while  they  belong  to  us  and  befit  us 
far  more  than  the  opposite  qualities,  they  are  ours 
as  spiritual  rather  than  as  human  beings.  They 
are  ours  as  from  above  and  not  from  beneath. 
Strangely  do  these  two  conflicting  lives  meet  in 
us,  forming  the  insoluble  mystery  and  tragedy  of 
our  being, — 

"  My  life  is  twofold; 
Human  and  divine,  buried  and  crown'd." 

Whoever  has  caught,  however  dimly,  a  vision  of 

ideal  manhood,  or  has  striven,  however  vainly,  to 

realize  it,  knows  that  if  he  could  only 

humanly  is      find  a  man  who  really  is  all  that  a  man 

to  be  divine  ^ 

might  be,  to  such  a  one  he  would  give 
the  utmost  homage  of  heart  and  soul.  Life  is  one 
long,  disappointing  search  for  the  reality  of  that 
image  of  human  perfection  that  lies  in  the  depths 
of  each  human  heart.     Jesus  Christ  is  the  fulfil- 

[58] 


The  Huma7t  Christ 

ment  of  the  longing,  the  end  of  the  search,  the 
realizatj()n  of  the  image.  As  such  he  is  splen- 
didly, Supremely  human ;  but  just  because  he  is 
so  supremely  human  he  is  also  divine.  For  the 
perfectly  human  is  divine,  because  the  perfectly 
human  is  a  human  impossibility.  No  mere  man 
has  reached  it;  no  mere  rnan  can  reach  it.  Not 
a  man  who  ever  lived  but  has  felt  that  he  could 
have  reached  a  higher  manhood,  but  not  a  man 
but  has  felt  that  had  he  done  his  utmost  he 
could  not  have  been  a  perfect  man.  Perfection  is 
outside  the  range  of  human  possibility, —  in  the 
present  life  at  any  rate.  Paul,  who  reached  it  as 
nearly  as  any  one,  exclaims  with  noble  earnest- 
ness, "  Not  that  I  have  already  obtained,  or  am 
already  made  perfect."  Others,  looking  from  the 
outside,  may  think  a  man  near  perfection ;  he  him- 
self knows  better.  And  if  he  is  a  true  man  he  will 
confess  his  imperfection.  Why  is  it  that  Jesus 
never  made  such  a  confession?  By  that  token 
we  must  infer,  either  that  he  was  far  less  perfect 
than  the  best  of  his  fellows  or  far  more  perfect. 

Thus  the  study  of  the  historic  Christ  leads  us  on 
into  conjectures,  convictions,  affirmations  concern- 
ing him  which  take  us  out  of  the  his-  ^he  perfect 
torical,  the  understandable,  the  narrowly  Si^moTe"^* 
human,  into  the  realm  of  the  spiritual,  *^*"  ^^" 
the  mysterious,  the  universally  human.     Only  so 
could  we  have  a  completely  human  Christ,  a  Christ 
who  at  once  satisfies  us  and  saves  us.     Of  men 
[59] 


Christ  and  the  Eternat  Order 

of  imperfect,  incomplete  humanity,  nobly  striving 
after  perfection,  the  world  has  had  many,  and  richly 
have  they  helped  their  fellows ;  but  not  one  of  them 
could  redeem  humanity  because  not  one  was  wholly, 
perfectly  human.  Paradox  though  it  seem,  perfect 
humanity  is  necessarily  superhuman,  supernatural, 
divine.  If  the  best  that  is  in  us  all  is  divine,  He  in 
whom  the  best  rules  absolutely  is  divine  indeed. 
Would  we  have  a  Christ  who  is  wholly,  richly,  per- 
fectly human,  we  needs  must  have  an  incarnation. 

II 

Here  we  are  met  by  what  seems  an  insuperable 
objection.  If  Christ  is  perfectly,  supremely,  di- 
vinely human,  what  of  that  struggle 
pe?fcc"chri3t  vvith  self,  that  attainment,  that  victory 

*°^P  *  over  evil  which  is  the  very  glory  and 
crown  of  our  humanity;  without  which  humanity 
is  but  a  semblance  and  no  reality?  A  Christ  who 
is  not  **  in  all  points  tempted  like  as  we  are  "  is  no 
Christ,  at  least  no  human  Christ.  It  is  worthy^of 
note  that  the  author  of  the  Episde  to  the  Hebrews 
who  presents  the  most  touching  and  humanizing 
picture  of  the  Christ,  tempted,  battling,  overcom- 
ing, is  one  who  from  start  to  finish  of  his  noble 
epistle  represents  Christ  as  the  divine  Mediator, 
the  perfect  Revealer  of  God  —  "  the  effulgence  of 
his  glory,  and  the  very  image  of  his  substance." 
In  his  mind  there  was  no  incongruity  between  such 
divinity  and  such  humanity. 

[60] 


The  Human  Christ 

And  not  only  is  there  to  him  no  incongruity  be- 
tween these  two  aspects  of  Christ,  but  clearly  he 
feels  that  the  one  is  essential  to  the  other.  For 
immediately  upon  asserting  the  temptability  of 
Christ,  he  adds  "yet  without  sin."  It  was  that 
alone  which  gave  significance  to  Christ's  tempta- 
tion, that  it  was  without  sitiy  as  no  other  man's  has 
ever  been.  In  other  words,  it  is  the  divinity  of 
Christ  which  gives  depth  and  scope  and  reality  to 
his  humanity.  If  his  humanity  had  not  been 
divine  humanity,  it  could  not  have  been  perfect 
humanity,  and  if  it  had  not  been  perfect,  it  would 
have  had  no  peculiar  and  universal  significance. 

Ill 

All  that  Nestorianism  and  Socinianism,  all  that 
Unitarianism  and  Ritschlianism  have  insisted  upon 
for  the  true  humanity  of  Christ,  —  his 
dependence,  his  temptability,  his  strug-  if^'neT^^Ss 
gle,  his  victory  — finds  ample  place  in  Seiy'com- 
the    theology  of    the    incarnation.      In  glvdopmeSt 
fact,  the  very  conditions  involved  in  an 
incarnation   afford    the   only   adequate    scope    for 
the  development  and    realization  of  a   full,  com- 
plete, perfect  humanity.    The  gradual  awakening  of 
Jesus  to  the  consciousness  of  a  peculiar  mission  to 
men  (Messiahship),  based  upon  a  peculiarly  pure 
and  intimate  sense  of  communion  with  God,  must 
in  itself  have  led  to  peculiar  temptations,  struggles, 
yearning  toward  men,  fellowship  with  God. 
[6i] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

It  is  impossible  to  account  for  Jesus*  assumption 
of  the  r61e  of  Messiahship  except  as  he  felt  within 
himself  a  unique  heavenly  endowment,  qualifying 
him  for  a  superhuman  task.  Given  this  endow- 
ment and  this  vocation,  and  you  have  the  con- 
ditions essential  for  the  complete  development  of 
a  character  made  perfect  through  sufferings.  The 
stress  and  sublimity  of  the  temptations  attending 
the  assumption  of  his  mission,  so  graphically  and 
feelingly  allegorized  in  the  temptations  of  the 
wilderness,  are  such  as  are  possible  to  and  pro- 
ductive of  a  humanity  deeper,  nobler,  more  po- 
tent, than  any  other  man  has  possessed.  And  so 
throughout,  to  the  garden  hour  and  the  darkness 
of  the  cross. 

The  level  of  a  person's  life  is  indicated  by  the 
character  of  his  temptations.  It  is  a  crude  mis- 
take that  any  level  of  human  life  is  free 
is^obc""*"  from  temptation.  It  was  far  from  the 
tempt  wicket  gate  that  Christian  met  Apollyon. 

Holiness  immunes  are  the  victims  of  a  peculiarly 
subtle  temptation.  To  be  above  temptation  and 
struggle  Christ  must  have  been,  not  sinless,  but 
unsinable,  not  perfect  but  super-perfect.  It  would 
be  nearer  the  truth  to  regard  him  as  the  most 
severely  tempted  of  men.  The  fact  that  his  temp- 
tations were  on  the  very  highest  level  does  not 
diminish  their  power.  Sensual  temptations  may 
be  the  most  immediate  and  violent,  but  not  the 
most  insidious  and  terrible.     It  is  only  a  Christ, 

[62] 


The  Human  Christ 

looking  down  from  a  pinnacle  of  the  temple,  who 
sees  the  real  depths  below. 

He  who  has  won  his  victory  on  the  lower  levels 
of  temptation  can  understand  little  of  the  storms 
that   assail    him  who  stands    upon   the 
higher.     But  he  who  has  won  on  the  Se^^fS?" 
higher  levels  can  understand  something  sy^mplthy*^^ 
of  the  whole  range  of  temptation,  down 
to  the  very  bottom.     It  is  impossible  to  think  of 
Jesus  struggling  with  lust  or  alcoholism,  yet  the 
intensity  of  his  own  temptation  lets  him  into  the 
secret  of  every  temptation  with  the  wealth  of  com- 
plete sympathy.     Such  a  One  stoops  to  a  Mary 
Magdalene  without  effort  and  treats  even  a  Judas 
with  marvelous  charity  and  pity. 

The  Human  Christ  is  touched  with  a  feeling  of 
our  infirmity  not  because  of  his  imperfection  but 
because  of  his  perfection,  not  because  of  his  limita- 
tion but  because  of  his  fulness,  not  because  he  is 
"  merely  '*  human,  but  because  he  is  divinely 
human. 


[63] 


IX 

THE   HISTORIC   CHRIST 

The  modern  illumination  of  the  Historic  Christ  is 

twofold :  the  refreshening  of  Jesus  as  a  person  ifi 

history  and  the  beginnings  of  an  under- 

The  Historic  ,  /  ^  ,  .       .    ^ 

Christ  rcvivi-  standmg  of  his  mfluence  upon  history. 
As  the  result  of  the  first  of  these  inves- 
tigations, we  have  to-day  the  most  vivid  and  sci- 
entific knowledge  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  reached  by 
any  generation,  since  his  own.  Not  only  has  the 
dust  been  brushed  from  the  original  portrait,  but 
new  pictures  of  his  country,  his  people,  his  environ- 
ment, have  been  painted,  with  the  utmost  possible 
accuracy  and  realism,  and  hung  beside  the  original, 
in  order  that  all  possible  light  may  be  thrown  upon 
this  most  preeminent  of  men.  Criticism,  which 
seemed  at  one  time  about  to  shatter  the  reality 
of  the  historical  Jesus,  has  resulted  in  establishing 
the  trustworthiness  of  the  Gospel  narrative.  It  is 
evidence  of  the  return  to  equilibrium  of  Biblical 
criticism  that  one  of  the  leading  New  Testament 
scholars  of  the  day  can  say :  "  Let  the  plain  Bible 
reader  continue  to  read  his  Gospels  as  he  has  read 
them ;  for  in  the  end  the  critic  cannot  read  them 
otherwise."  ^ 

^  Harnack,  Christianity  and  History^  p.  58. 

[64] 


The  Historic  Christ 


The  striking  and  significant  fact  concerning  this 
fresh  illumination  of  the  Jesus  of  history  is  that  he 
proves  so  real  and  so  magnetic  to  the  world  of 
to-day.  Many  centuries  separate  him  from  us; 
mighty  changes  have  swept  across  the  interven- 
ing generations ;  civilization  has  moved  on  through 
diverse  periods  and  vast  developments,  but  the 
Man  of  Nazareth  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day  and 
forever  in  his  hold  upon  men.  Above  the  now 
curious  and  outgrown  ideas  of  his  time,  the  meager 
life,  the  archaic  customs,  he  rises  supremely  real, 
supremely  commanding  and  supremely  winsome. 

Knowledge  of  the  second  aspect  of  the  Historic 
Christ,  namely,  his  impress  upon  history,  has  not 
progressed  so  far.     In  fact  we  have  just 

r  ,  ,  ,  .  ,  The  Effect  of 

begun    vaguely  to    apprehend,  without  jesusupon 

-   -,  ,  ,  ,,  ,         History 

yet  estmiatmg  carefully  and  broadly,  the 
effect  which  Jesus  has  had  in  determining  the 
course  and  movement  of  human  history.  It  is  an 
arduous  enterprise  and  awaits  the  genius  and  labor 
of  historians  yet  to  appear.  The  merest  glance 
at  the  movement  of  history  reveals  how  large,  how 
revolutionary,  how  beneficent,  has  been  the  part 
which  Jesus  has  played  in  forming  men  and  shap- 
ing events.  Rightly  to  estimate  this,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  study  the  impact  of  Jesus,  not  only  upon 
the  history  of  the  Church  and  of  Christianity  itself, 
5  [65] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

but  the  total,  often  subtle  influence  of  his  teaching 
and  personality  upon  the  entire  movement  of 
humanity.^ 

How  far  has  Jesus  molded  civilization  in  the  last 

two  thousand  years,  —  its  movements,  tendencies, 

events,  its  thought  and  life?     It  cannot 

"  Far  as  the  =* 

curse  is  be  Said  that  he  has  completely  controlled 

found"  ^  •' 

Christendom  itself  He  does  not  yet 
guide,  for  he  has  not  yet  conquered  the  motives 
of  world-wide  humanity;  he  has  not  yet  been 
universally  crowned ;  he  has  not  yet  put  all  things 
under  his  feet  Nevertheless,  Jesus  has  dominated 
history.  He  has  been  its  Force  of  greatest  mo- 
ment. Now  exalted,  now  thrust  aside,  now  hon- 
ored, now  ignored,  he  has  persistently  asserted  his 
sway  over  the  tumultuous  forces  of  the  world.  He 
has  bidden  its  waves  and  tempests,  "  Peace,  be 
still."  He  has  commanded  its  evil  spirits,  "  Come 
forth."  He  has  spoken  *'  Ephphatha "  to  its 
blindnesses,  shamed  and  driven  forth  its  irreverent 
money-changers,  has  said,  "  Take  up  thy  bed,  and 
walk  "  to  its  impotents,  "  Go,  and  sin  no  more  " 
to  its  penitents.  He  has  called,  "  Awake  "  to  its 
dormancy  and,  "  Arise  "  to  its  death.  Through  its 
market-places  he  has  gone,  within  its  temples  he 

*  "  Jesus  therefore  cannot  belong  exclusively  to  those 
who  call  themselves  his  disciples.  He  is  the  common  honor 
of  all  who  bear  a  human  heart.  His  glory  consists  not  in 
being  banished  from  history;  we  render  him  a  truer  worship 
by  showing  that  all  history  is  incomprehensible  without  him." 
Renan,  Life  of  Jesus. 

[66] 


The  Historic  Christ 

has  entered,  into  its  sick  chambers  he  has  softly 
stolen,  across  the  thresholds  of  its  prisons  and 
dens  and  brothels  and  into  all  its  lowest  hells  he 
has  fearlessly  stepped ;  within  its  palaces  and  par- 
liaments he  has  gone;  beside  its  open  graves  he 
has  stood,  and  the  toiling,  sinning,  suffering,  sor- 
rowing, aspiring  world  has  felt  him  and  known  him 
and  bowed  before  him  and  loved  him.  Of  the 
greatest  and  most  enduring  of  human  organiza- 
tions, the  Church,  he  has  been  the  acknowledged 
Master  and  Lord.  To  millions  of  redeemed  souls 
he  has  been  Light-bringer  and  Life-giver. 

The  crises  of  history  have  turned  upon  Christ, 
not  always  obviously,  but  always  his  teachings, 
his  person,  or  his  Church,  have  been  implicitly,  if 
not  explicitly,  involved.  Evolutions  and  revolu- 
tions, wars  and  pacifications,  colonizations  and 
reformations  have  felt  his  power.  Art,  literature, 
science,  have  been  purified  and  stimulated  by  him. 
Civilization  itself  has  been  largely  molded  by  him. 
Take  away  all  that  is  distinctively  Christian  from 
civilization,  and  what  a  disintegration  and  corrup- 
tion would  remain !  Without  him  the  world 
might  have  had  another  Greece  or  Rome,  but 
not  an  England  or  an  America.  The  free- 
dom of  the  slave,  the  emancipation  of  woman, 
the  rescue  of  the  helpless,  the  amelioration  of  the 
laborer,  the  progress  toward  universal  peace  — 
such  are  some  of  the  achievements  of  Christ  in 
history. 

[67] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 


II 

But  is  it  the  Jesus  of  history  simply  who  has 
accomplished  all  this?  Could  any  individual 
An  Ally  alonc,  howcver  vital  his  influence  upon 

withm  j^jg   ^^^    ^^^   succeeding    generations, 

have  so  mastered  and  molded  human  history? 
Only  by  virtue  of  an  inner,  spiritual  principle,  in 
league  with  him,  moving  within  the  human  soul 
both  before  and  at  the  same  time  that  Jesus  moves 
upon  it  from  without  could  these  great  achieve- 
ments have  been  effected.  No  external  force,  argu- 
ment or  person  can  affect  the  individual  or  society 
decisively  except  there  be  Somewhat  or  Someone 
within  that  responds  to,  and  abets,  the  outer  influ- 
ence. We  may  call  this  inner  advocate.  Con- 
science, or  Reason,  or  Ideal,  or  whatever  we 
choose ;  we  may  assert  that  it  inheres  in  our  very 
being  and  constitution ;  but  when  we  have  done 
our  best  to  identify  this  Inner  Impulse  with  our 
self,  we  know,  that  however  intimately  inwrought 
into  our  very  selfhood,  nevertheless  it  is  not  of 
our  earth-born  nature,  not  our  individual  posses- 
sion, but  is,  in  its  essence,  universal  and  eternal. 

Nor  is  this  inner  Reality  impersonal,  an  abstrac- 
tion or  a  quality,  but  a  vital,  concrete,  personal 
Presence.  Who,  then,  can  it  be  but  He  of  whom 
Frederick  Denison  Maurice  wrote,  in  his  impas- 
sioned way :  **  I  mean  a  reality,  I  mean  something 
[68] 


The  Historic  Christ 

that  does  not  proceed  from  you  or  belong  to  you. 
Nay,  stay  a  moment.  I  mean  that  this  light 
comes  from  a  Person,  from  the  Lord  and  King 
of  your  heart  and  spirit  —  from  the  Word  —  the 
Son  of  God." 

Ill 

To  neglect,  or  subordinate,  or  set  aside,  the 
Jesus  of  history  results  either  in  mysticism  or 
in  rationalism.  The  warning  is  writ  ThePeniof 
large  in  the  history  of  doctrine.  Mysti-  g?s°orir*''' 
cism  too  often  sailed  away  without  ^*^"^* 
chart  or  compass  upon  unknown  seas  and  dis- 
appeared in  fog  and  futility.  Rationalism  dug  so 
deep  for  a  foundation  for  faith  that  it  was  buried 
under  the  soil  upon  which  it  should  have  built. 
Absolute  Idealism  spurned  the  earth  and  has 
always  remained  in  the  air.  To  find  in  Jesus 
Christ,  as  does  Hegelianism,  only  an  Idea,  how- 
ever rich  in  significance  and  fruitful  in  influence, 
of  which  Jesus  is  but  the  concrete  expression,  is 
to  resolve  religion  into  an  unfolding  and  apothe- 
osis of  Reason,  and  Christianity  into  a  syncretistic 
gnosis.  Christianity  began  with  a  historic  person 
and  rests  absolutely  and  permanently  upon  history. 
The  Jesus  of  history  can  never,  without  apostasy 
and  disaster,  be  ignored  or  left  behind. 

But  to  account  for  Christianity  by  the  Historic 
Christ  alone  is  quite  as  one-sided  and  disastrous, 

L69] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

for  it  leaves  no  place  for  a  direct  and  inner 
communion  with  God.  Christ  means  far  more 
The  equal  ^^  humanity  than  a  historic  individual. 
£g"th^^E^ter-^'  ^^^^  unique  and  potent  place  which  he 
nai  Christ  \^q\^^  in  the  life  of  the  race  can  be 
explained  only  as  we  connect  the  Historic  Christ 
with  the  Christ  who  was  before  history  and  above 
history, — the  Word  who  was  in  the  beginning 
with  God  and  was  God.  This  Christ  was  in  the 
world  before  Jesus  came  and  remained  after  he 
had  departed.  The  Eternal  Christ  was  the  first 
Messenger  of  the  Incarnation  and  the  first  Mis- 
sionary of  the  Cross.  It  is  he  who  was  preferred 
before  the  Historic  Christ,  for  he  was  before  him ; 
it  is  he  who  survived  Jesus  and  glorified  him. 
This  is  the  Christ  of  consciousness,  the  Christ 
of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  the  Inner  and  Eternal 
Prototype  and  Ideal. 


[70] 


X 

THE   ETERNAL  CHRIST 

The  distinction  between  the  Historic  Christ  and 
the  Eternal  Christ  is  by  no  means  a  merely 
academic  and  speculative  distinction.  Aheipfui 
It  represents,  even  if  it  fails  to  ex-  ^^^^^^^°^ 
press,  a  real  element  in  the  Christian  conscious- 
ness. The  Christ  whom  we  love  and  worship  we 
feel  is  not  a  mere  creature  of  time.  Manifested 
in  time,  he  nevertheless  transcends  time,  in  nature 
and  in  significance.  Else  we  could  not  justify  our 
attitude  toward  him.  It  is  only  as  the  Historic 
Christ  and  the  Eternal  Christ  supplement  and 
fulfil  one  another  that  we  gain  a  consistent  and 
complete  conception  of  Christ  as  he  exists  in 
Christian  life  and  consciousness. 

I 
The  Historic  Christ  gives  form  and  embodiment 
to  the  dim  and  indistinct  outlines  of  the  Eternal 
Christ.     Fact  ratifies  ideal;    sight  con-  The  Historic 
firms  consciousness.     In  the  assuringly  JiJi"Etera^* 
real    and    tangible   Jesus,   the   Eternal  ^^"^^ 
Christ  comes  forth  from  the  vague  background  of 
eternity  and  the  shifting  shadows  of  experience, 

[71] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

and  stands  out  in  the  clear  light  of  incarnate, 
historic  reality.  "That  which  we  have  seen  and 
heard  declare  we  unto  you."  Men  turn  to  him 
with  joy  as  to  One  whom  they  have  already  known 
in  the  deeper  insights  of  the  soul.  Jewish  proph- 
ecy of  the  Messiah  is  but  a  fragment  of  the  in- 
stinctive prescience  of  the  human  spirit  that  finds 
its  realization  in  Jesus.  He,  as  he  comes,  inter- 
prets this  prescience  to  itself.  The  white  light  of 
dawn  above  the  eastern  hills  is  part  of  the  sunrise, 
but  when  the  sun  itself  swings  clear  and  free  above 
the  horizon  the  fainter  flush  that  preceded  it  is 
both  explained  and  exceeded.  So  the  Christ  of 
history  explains  and  exceeds  the  light  of  the  Eter- 
nal Christ  in  the  soul. 

At  first  thought  it  seems  impossible  that  any 

individual,  with  his  single,  segregated  qualities  and 

his  necessary  limitations,  can  represent 

these  the  heart  of  the   Living  God,  can    in- 

thingB  be?  t>  » 

carnate  the  Eternal  Word.  How  can 
one  man  stand  for  God  ?  It  seems  like  snatching 
a  star  from  infinite  space  and  making  it  burn  upon 
an  earthen  candlestick.  No  wonder  that  when  the 
proposition  is  detached  from  the  Person,  the  in- 
tellect rebels,  faith  fails.  But  when  we  turn  to  the 
New  Testament  and  read  the  familiar  story,  in  its 
simple  and  convincing  straightforwardness,  the 
figure  of  Jesus  rises  before  us  so  sane  and  yet  so 
sublime  that  we  feel  we  cannot  compress  him  into 
the  mold  of  ordinary  humanity.    He  rises  too  high 

[72] 


The  Eternal  Christ 

above  all  other  men  to  be  measured  by  customary- 
standards.  We  cannot  bind  him  to  the  bed  of 
Procrustes.  He  passes  through  the  midst  of  us 
and  of  our  inadequate  estimates  and  standards 
and  leaves  us  awed  and  humiliated.  He  grows 
upon  us  in  mystery  and  majesty.  What  can  we 
do  but  bid  conception  follow  upon  conviction  and 
crown  him  Lord  of  all? 

"  But,"  objects  the  realist,  "  this  is  an  unwar- 
ranted idealizing  of  history,  a  wholly  irrational 
exaltation  of  an  individual  life,  a  purely  arbitrary 
universalizing  of  a  person  fixed  to  a  single  genera- 
tion and  a  single  race."  Is  this  a  conclusive  ob- 
jection ?  It  would  be,  if  Jesus  were  the  sole  revela- 
tion of  God,  or  if  he  were  unrelated  to  other  forms 
of  revelation.  The  Historic  Christ  unpreceded  by 
and  unrelated  to  an  Eternal  Christ  would  be  an  anom- 
aly, thrust  into  the  process  of  history,  unheralded 
and  unexplained.  But  coming  as  the  embodiment, 
the  historic  incarnation  of  a  Christ  eternally  ex- 
istent and  present  in  humanity  universally  and  from 
the  beginning,  the  Historic  Christ  interprets,  clari- 
fies, consummates  the  whole  process  of  revelation. 

II 

Not  only  does  the  Historic  Christ  define  and 
fulfil  the  Eternal  Christ,  the  Eternal  Christ  ratifies 
and  universalizes  the  Historic  Christ.  If  the  His- 
toric Christ  verifies  the  Eternal  Christ,  not  less  does 
the  Eternal  Christ  verify  the  Historic  Christ.    His- 

[73] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

tory  alone  will  not  save  the  world,  even  if  it  be  the 

history  of  a  divine  Man.     History  without  relation 

to  eternity  would  be  a  hopeless  maze,  an 

The  Eternal  ,,  n  •        i 

Christ  wit-      endlcss  rlux,  a  meaningless  succession. 

nesses  to  ,_^  ,         ^,      .      .        . 

the  Historic     lo  make  Christianity  dependent   upon 

Christ  ,  .  .        ^  ,  r  ^    ,  .     ,         , 

historic  fact  alone  is  as  short-sighted 
and  suicidal  as  to  cut  it  away  from  fact  altogether. 
*'  Woe  to  us,"  well  says  Harnack,  **  if  our  faith 
rested  on  a  number  of  details  to  be  demonstrated 
and  established  by  the  historian."  ^  To  the  same 
effect  Sabatier  wrote :  "  Criticism  will  always  be  a 
just  cause  of  alarm  to  those  who  elevate  any  his- 
torical and  contingent  form  whatever  into  the  ab- 
solute, for  the  excellent  reason  that  an  historical 
phenomenon,  being  always  conditioned,  can  never 
have  the  characteristics  of  the  absolute."  ^  The 
Christian  consciousness,  individual  and  corporate, 
which  is  the  ultimate  reliance  of  religious  truth, 
is  above  historic  fact,  precedes  it,  outruns  it,  out- 
ranks it.  In  its  pure,  essential  self,  truth  may  be 
factless,  formless,  eternal,  absolute.  But,  for  us  at 
least,  truth,  though  not  identical  with  form  or  fact, 
is  always  clothed  with  form  or  fact.  In  this  relation- 
ship the  advantage  is  mutual.  If  fact  expresses 
truth,  not  less  does  truth  glorify  fact.  If  the  Christ 
of  history  focuses,  visualizes,  incarnates  the  Eternal 
Christ,  the  Eternal  Christ  interprets,  glorifies,  trans- 
figures the  Historic  Christ. 

^  Christianity  and  History y  p.  60. 

*  Outlines  of  a  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  167. 

[74] 


The  Eternal  Christ 


III 


It  is  a  daring,  and  almost  overwhelming,  hypoth- 
esis that  thus  unites  history  and  eternity  with 
the  golden  link  of  a  single  life,  a  soli- 

.  T^  •  T_     The  Life  that 

tary  consciousness.  It  requires  a  superb  iinks  Eternity 
outreach  of  faith  to  grasp  and  hold 
fast  such  a  conception.  To  surmise  and  speculate 
over  it  is  not  difficult,  but  to  hold  Christ,  as  Paul 
held  him,  as  the  solution  of  all  problems  and  the 
inspiration  of  all  deeds  —  this  is  a  summons  to 
supreme  heights  of  thought  and  life.  And  yet,  it 
is  neither  irrational  nor  without  analogy.  It  taxes 
reason,  by  transcending  lower  superficial  and 
merely  common-sense  views  of  the  universe,  but  it 
does  not  transgress  reason.  Philosophy  tends 
more  and  more  to  exalt  personality.  This  doc- 
trine carries  forward  this  tendency  and  con- 
centrates all  truth  in  one  perfect,  divine-human 
personality.  Science  furnishes  an  analogy  in  what 
Professor  Shaler  has  termed  "critical  points," 
and  Professor  De  Vries  **  saltation,"  where  either  a 
sudden  leap  from  below  or  an  external  reenforce- 
ment  occurs,  as  miraculous  in  natural  history  as 
are  certain  phenomena,  scorned  by  the  scientist, 
in  human  history.  Are  there  not  critical  points,- 
saltations,  in  human  history?  Above  all  is  there 
not  one  critical  point,  as  epochal  as  that  of  the  ap- 
pearance of  man  on  the  earth,  namely  the  advent 
of  him  whom  Paul  calls  the  Second  Man,  the  Lord 
[7S] 


\ 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

from  heaven,  in  whom  time  and  eternity  meet,  who 
thus  becomes  the  Revelation  of  God  and  the 
Creator  of  a  new  humanity? 

Moreover,  this  hypothesis  approves  itself  to  the 
pragmatic  test,  —  it  works.  The  man  who  takes 
The  Pra  Jesus  Christ  as  his  Interpreter  and  End 

xnaticTest  f^j^^jg  himself  in  harmony  with  God, 
with  nature  and  with  humanity.  God  is  real,  liv- 
ing, near;  nature  is  resplendent,  harmonious, 
aspiring;  humanity  is  dear,  lovable,  salvable. 
Ethical  relations  are  clarified  and  strengthened, 
spiritual  insights  purified  and  potentialized.  The 
spiritual  mind  which  is  life  and  peace  takes  posses- 
sion of  the  soul.  The  universe  has  a  meaning,  the 
present  life  a  purpose,  the  future  a  hope.  In 
Christ  the  man  is  a  new  creature.  Old  things  are 
past  away,  behold  all  things  are  become  new. 

Not  every  man  who  takes  Christ  as  the  Center 
of  his  universe,  the  Explanation  and  Goal  of  exist- 
christ  means  ^nce,  thinks  himself  through  as  to  what 
"mln'JhS''^  Christ  means  to  him  intellectually  as 
he  knows  ^^u  ^g  spiritually.  Very  rare  is  the 
Christian  who  attempts,  or  who  needs  to  attempt, 
to  solve  the  problem  of  the  Christ  personality  — 
how  he  is  related  to  God,  to  nature  and  to  human- 
ity, and  why  he  has  such  power  over  himself.  And 
yet  Christianity  demands,  for  the  sake  of  its  own 
consistency  and  self-assurance,  that  this  attempt 
be  made.  And  when  made,  it  inevitably  leads  to 
the  distinction  between  the  Historic  Christ  and  the 

[76] 


The  Eternal  Christ 

Eternal  Christ,  the  Christ  of  history  and  of  expe- 
rience, and  the  endeavor  to  relate  the  two  aspects 
to  each  other.  Only  in  the  Logos  Christology 
is  there  room  for  this  problem  and  only  in  the 
Living  Christ  can  we  find  its  solution. 


[77] 


XI 

THE   LIVING  CHRIST 

Christ  has  been  to  humanity,  successively,  an 
inner,  prophetic,  potential  Logos ;  a  visible,  his- 
toric individual  God-Man,  and  an  invisible,  exalted, 
living  Lord.  We  may  not  say  that  the  Living 
Christ  is  a  fusion  of  the  Eternal  Christ  and  the 
Historic  Christ;  but  the  Christ  whom  we  know  in 
the  blending  of  these  is  a  completer  Christ.  In 
effect  he  is  a  new  Christ,  —  new  in  universality 
and  in  potency. 

I 

The  Living  Christ,  risen  and  redeeming  as  well 
as  cosmic,  indwelling  and  prepotent,  is  the  Christ 
^^  r.  of  Paul,  as  the  Historic  Christ  is   the 

The  Living 

chnst  Paul's  ChHst  of  the  Synoptics,  and  the  Eternal 
Christ  the  Christ  of  the  Fourth  Gospel. 
It  was  the  Living  Christ  whom  Paul  met  on  the 
Damascus  road.  For  this  Living  Christ  it  became 
Paul's  passion  to  live.  Very  little  of  the  Historic 
Christ  appears  in  the  writings  of  the  great  apostle. 
He  is  there,  as  the  indispensable  historic  revelation 
(beyond  him  in  the  cosmic  background  the  Eternal 
Christ),  but   to    Paul   the   resurrection   projected 

[78] 


The  Living  Christ 

Jesus  into  a  new  and  limitless  sphere  of  relation- 
ships and  potentialities,  far  more  vital  as  well  as 
universal  than  was  possible  to  Him  in  his  earthly 
Kfe.  And  this  Living  Christ  Paul  succeeded  —  to 
speak  after  the  manner  of  men  —  in  enthroning  as 
the  ever-living  Lord  of  humanity.  Once  and 
again  the  Church  has  drifted  away  from  him,  now 
toward  the  merely  human  and  historic  Jesus,  now 
toward  the  Eternal  but  indistinct  Christ  of  Reason ; 
but  always  it  has  been  brought  back,  face  to  face, 
heart  to  heart,  with  the  Living  Christ,  and  always 
Paul  has  had  a  part,  now  greater,  now  less,  in 
effecting  the  return.  It  was  Paul  through  whom 
Luther  and  Wesley  and  the  Protestant  Church 
found  again  the  Living  Christ. 

The  Living  Christ  is  our  Christ  of  to-day.  The 
pagan  world  had  the  Eternal  Christ  and  rejected 
him;  the  Jews  had  the  Historic  Christ  The  Living 
and  crucified  him;  we  have  the  Living  chStof* 
Christ,  and  now  is  the  day  of  salvation.  To-<iay 
Not  that  we  of  to-day  have  not  also  the  Eternal 
Christ  and  the  Historic  Christ.  The  Living  Christ 
embraces  both  of  these.  We  do  not  start  where 
the  pagan  world  started,  with  a  mere  revelation 
within.  We  do  not  start  where  the  disciples  started, 
with  a  flesh  and  blood  Companion.  Our  Christ 
has  emerged  from  the  shadowy  recesses  of  con- 
science and  reason,  has  passed  through  and  be- 
yond the  limitations  of  earthly  existence,  and 
become   the   Living   Lord  of  humanity,  clear   to 

[79] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

conception,  winsome  to  the  heart,  potent  over  the 
will ;  Master  of  the  individual,  Lord  of  the  Church, 
Redeemer  of  the  world. 

Into  this  Living  Christ  both  the  Eternal  Christ 
and  the  Historic  Christ  pass,  each,  as  it  were,  los- 
ing himself  to  find  himself  in  one  revealing  Person, 
who  was  before  time  and  place,  in  time  and  place, 
and  above  time  and  place,  as  well  as  in  them,  the 
Alpha  and  Omega,  the  first  and  the  last,  who  was, 
who  is,  and  who  is  to  come. 

II 

This  is  the  Living  Christ  because  he  himself 
lives.  He  lives  in  a  deeper,  larger  sense  than 
'•Life in  Jcsus  livcd.     For  Hc  who  toiled  at  the 

Himself"  carpenter's  bench  and  renewed  his  phy- 
sical strength  with  food  and  drink  and  slept  away 
the  weariness  of  the  day,  was  necessarily  "  cabin'd, 
cribb'd  and  confin'd  "  by  material  limitations.  It 
could  not  be  otherwise.  But,  in  fuller  union  with 
the  Eternal  Logos,  freed  from  the  accidents  of  in- 
dividuality, the  restrictions  of  time  and  place  and 
the  confinements  of  human  knowledge  and  activ- 
ity, he  now  truly,  completely,  gloriously  lives. 

Not  that  the  Living  Christ,  let  it  be  repeated, 
is  another  or  different  being  from  the  lowly,  loving 
Jesus.  In  character  and  purpose  and  communi- 
cableness  he  is  unchanged,  the  same  yesterday, 
to-day  and  forever.  But  he  has  passed  on  into 
wider  relations  and  fuller  life.     In  Tennyson's  /;/ 

[80] 


The  Living  Christ 

Memoriam  the  poet,  in  one  of  the  cantos,  addresses 
his  immortal  friend : 

"  Tho'  mix'd  with  God  and  Nature  thou, 
I  seem  to  love  thee  more  and  more." 

In  the  eternal  life,  identity  is  not  lost  in  the  wider 
spiritual  relationships  but  is  so  heightened  and 
glorified  as  to  win  a  nobler  and  more  unselfish 
love.  Jesus  is  no  less  real  and  lovable  in  his 
eternal  transfiguration  as  Living  Lord  than  in  his 
temporal  taskmastership. 

Ill 

This  is  the  Living  Christ  also  because  he  gives 
life.  The  earthly  Jesus  redeemed  a  few,  the  Liv- 
ing Christ  redeems  many;  the  former 

°  ^  '  "I  came  that 

gave  life,  the  latter  gives  it  more  abun-  they  may  have 

Life 

dantly.  This  Life-giver  touches  the  in- 
dividual and  he  becomes  a  new  creature.  He 
imparts  himself  to  his  Church  and  reformations  and 
revivals  follow.  He  moves  upon  society  and  free- 
dom, peace,  brotherhood  dawn,  never  to  set  till  the 
kingdom  has  come. 

The  Living  Christ  is  more,  not  less, /^r^<?;?^/ than 
the  earthly  Jesus.  The  body  is,  without  doubt,  an 
expressive  instrument  of  personality,  but 

-  -  f  T       "Spirit  with 

by  no  means  a  perfect  mstrument.     It  spintcan 

•  •  1       r  ^         r  meet " 

IS  not   sensitive   enough  for  the  finest 
communications.      We   comprehend  one  another 
more  by  inner  intuitions  than  by  outer  signs.     The 
6  [8i] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

intimate  thought-feeling  of  another  person  comes 
to  us  as  a  kind  of  unmediated  personal  impact.  The 
finer  and  more  sensitive  to  one  another  we  grow, 
the  less  need  of  language  or  symbol.  Shouting, 
pantomime  and  gesticulation  disappear  before  the 
finer  culture.  Signless,  soundless,  soulful  is  the 
purest,  deepest  self-impartation.  The  sense  of 
presence,  of  communion,  is  the  most  intense  and 
vital  experience  that  the  Christian  has.  Call  it 
the  presence  of  God,  or  of  Christ,  or  of  the  Spirit,  it 
matters  not.  It  is  the  Father,  the  Spirit,  the  Son 
—  the  Living  God.  But  let  us  not  forget  that  the 
Living  God  comes  to  us  only  through  the  Living 
Christ.  In  his  very  impartation  of  himself  to  us 
he  becomes  the  Living  Christ.  Whoever  experi- 
ences the  nearness  of  God  feels  his  nearness  in 
Christ.  The  Son  who  reveals  him,  reveals  him 
near.  Such  an  experience  is  a  living  and  personal 
experience.  It  is  too  vital  to  be  impersonal.  In- 
deed it  is  more  personal  than  the  ordinary  contact 
of  every-day  intercourse.  More  personal  even  than 
the  communion  of  the  disciple  who  leaned  on  Jesus* 
breast  was  that  of  him  who  said,  "  It  is  no  longer  I 
that  live,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me." 


IV 

The  Living  Christ  is  more,  not  less,  potent 
than  the  earthly  Jesus.  If  Christ  were  only  a 
figure  in  history,  however    majestic,   however  in- 


The  Living  Christ 

fluential,  however  fadeless,  he  would  fall  short  of 
being  a  Redeemer.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  a 
great  spirit  of  the  past,  like  Washington, 

1-  t  .,,,..,,.'    "I  am  with 

lives,  and  ever  will  live,  in  the  hves  of  you  always, 

even  unto  the 

his  countrymen.  Each  new  generation  end  of  the 
appropriates  him,  is  made  better,  more 
patriotic  by  him.  No  effort  is  needed  to  keep 
such  a  memory,  such  a  personality,  alive.  It  keeps 
itself  alive  and  inspires  and  uplifts  the  heart  of  the 
nation  perpetually.  Jesus  Christ  lives,  and  will 
ever  live,  in  this  way,  not  as  a  national  but  as  a 
racial  hero.  But  this  is  not  the  only  way  in  which 
he  lives.  If  it  were,  "  what  soul  could  utter  on  the 
true  scale  of  his  soul  the  universal  woe, '  We  trusted 
that  it  should  have  been  He  who  should  have  re- 
deemed mankind  '  ?  "  ^  For  such  an  influence  could 
no  more  save  mankind  than  the  rays  of  a  star 
could  melt  the  winter  snows.  It  needs  more  than 
a  memory,  a  history,  a  record,  to  redeem  a  world. 
It  demands  no  less  than  a  living,  present,  vitalizing 
Person.  And  such  is  Christ.  Men  revere  the 
name  of  Washington,  but  they  are  not  baptized 
into  it;  nor  do  they  sing  to  him,  "  My  faith  looks 
up  to  thee,"  or,  "  Dear  Lord  and  Master  mine !  " 
There  is  a  potency  as  well  as  a  supremacy  in  the 
Christ  which  declares  him  living  in  a  sense  that  no 
other  man,  past  or  present,  lives.  Just  how,  or 
why,  it  is  so,  we  may  not  be  able  to  tell ;  but  such 

^  P.  T.  Forsyth,  The  Holy  Father  and  the  Living  Christy 
P-  133. 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

is  the  incontestable  consciousness  of  ever  multiply- 
ing millions  who  share  in  part  at  least  the  experi- 
ence of  the  apostle :  "  I  can  do  all  things  in  him 
that  strengtheneth  me." 

We  need  a  Living  Christ,  and  a  Living  Christ  we 
have.  The  Church  sometimes  longs  for  one  of  the 
The  Living  ^^7^  o^  the  Son  of  man;  the  disciple 
^'■'^  wishes  himself  back  in  the  days  of  the 

Galilean  companionship ;  but  it  is  not  the  visible, 
tangible  Christ  who  is  most  real,  most  personal, 
most  vital,  but  the  Christ  whose  spiritual  presence 
and  power  are  vitally  felt  It  remains  for  the 
Church  to  realize  this,  to  cease  thinking  of  the 
Christ  merely  as  a  historic  person,  or  as  an  exalted 
and  heavenly  being,  and  to  find  in  him  the  vital 
nearness  and  reality  of  a  Living  Lord.  With  such 
a  Living  Christ  in  human  life  all  best  things  are 
possible ;  they  are  certain.  We  may  be  of  good 
cheer.  The  Living  God  is  on  the  throne.  The 
Living  Christ  is  in  the  world. 


[84] 


XII 

THE  COSMIC   CHRIST 

In  company  with  fellow  travelers,  an  American 
once  stood,  looking  down  upon  Interlaken.  Ob- 
serving how  deeply  he  was  moved  by  a  scene 
the  nobility  and  beauty  of  the  wonder-  "Chnstuke" 
ful  scene,  a  German  lady  standing  next  him,  her- 
self sharing  his  emotion,  spoke  in  an  undertone  of 
reverence  and  joy  the  single  word,  "  Chrisilich  T* 
It  seemed  to  him,  as  he  caught  it,  the  one  word 
that  expressed  and  interpreted  the  scene,  translat- 
ing it  into  spiritual  meaning,  into  human-divine 
values. 

What  was  there  Christlike  in  the  scene  —  any- 
thing more  than  that  its  purity  and  freshness  and 
harmony  suggested  corresponding  moral  qualities 
in  the  Hfe  of  the  One  altogether  lovely?  Most 
persons  would  say,  "  This  is  all."  But  a  more 
tenacious  reflection  follows  further  and  queries 
whether  it  is  not  possible  that,  through  Him  who 
in  some  way  caused  both  this  beautiful  vale  and 
this  resplendent  Character  to  be,  there  may  not  be 
some  deeper  and  subtler  relationship. 
[8s] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 


It  is  one  of  the  most  striking  facts  in  the  history 
of  human  thought  that  a  good  man  who  lived  a 
Christ  and  humble  life  in  a  Roman  province  and 
died  upon  a  cross  two  thousand  years 
ago  should  have  aroused  in  more  than  one  of  his 
contemporaries  the  conception  that  he  himself 
was,  in  some  mystical  but  profoundly  real  way, 
uniquely  and  vitally  connected  with  nature,  nay 
with  the  process  of  creation  itself.  The  author  of 
that  marvelous  book,  the  Fourth  Gospel,  which 
has  hushed  the  world  to  silence  with  its  deep 
authoritative  note,  has  dared  to  affirm  that  the 
Word  incarnate  in  Jesus  was  also  the  medium  of 
Nothing  made  universal  creation.  *' All  things  were 
without  Him  j^^jg  through  him;  and  without  him 
was  not  anything  made  that  hath  been  made." 
And  Paul,  one  of  the  most  virile  and  commanding 
minds  the  world  has  ever  known,  came  to  practi- 
cally the  same  thought  of  Christ:  "All  things  have 
been  created  through  him,  and  unto  him;  and  he 
is  before  all  things,  and  in  him  all  things  consist." 
Nor  did  these  daring  minds  fail  of  a  following. 
The  Apologists,  trained  in  all  the  subtleties  and 
skepticisms  of  Greek  thought,  took  up  the  con- 
ception and  made  it  the  very  center  of  a  theology 
that  won  for  Christianity  intellectual  prestige  and 
strength.  Origen,  that  most  capacious  and  glow- 
ing mind  of  the  Early  Church,  made  for  the  doc- 
[86] 


The  Cosmic  Christ 

trine  a  permanent  place  in  Christian  theology. 
Athanasius  gave  it  a  still  deeper  interpretation, 
declaring  that  "  he  who  contemplates  Creation 
rightly  is  contemplating  also  the  Word  who  framed 
it  and  through  him  begins  to  apprehend  the 
Father."  ^  To  this  day  this  conception  has  held  its 
own,  commanding  the  support  of  many  of  the 
most  acute  and  thorough  thinkers  of  every  genera- 
tion, including  our  own. 

Modern  science  seems,  indeed,  to  shatter  this 
conception  as  an  empty  dream.  If  there  is  crea- 
tion at  all,  it  must  be  continuous,  and  Does  science 
the  process  of  evolution,  by  which  the  «=<"»t^«di*=t? 
universe  came  to  be  what  it  is,  knows  Jesus  Christ 
only  as  a  minute  and  hardly  distinguishable  prod- 
uct of  human  development,  having  no  more  to  do 
with  its  stupendous  movement  of  world-architecture 
than  an  insect  has  to  do  with  the  creation  of  the  sun 
in  whose  warmth  it  basks.  But  is  it  so  sure  that 
modern  science  thus  carelessly  fillips  Christ  into 
oblivion? 

In  all  the  vast,  titanic  process  by  which  the  uni- 
verse came  to  be  what   it  is,  if  we  accept  the 
controverted    nebular    hypothesis,    the 
whirling  of  star-dust,  the  swirl  and  crush     without 

,  .  r      »  .       1  Rationality 

of  matter,  the  magic  of  chemical  reac- 
tions, the  emergence  of  vegetable  and  animal  Hfe, 
was  there  no  order,  no  purpose,  no  progress?   Was 
it  all  one  colossal,  fortuitous,  meaningless  dance  of 
^  Athanasius,  Discourses  Against  the  Arians  I,  12. 

[87] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

unintelligent,  undirected  forces?  If  so,  why  has 
evolution  been  from  **  an  indefinite  incoherent  ho- 
mogeneity, to  a  definite  coherent  heterogeneity"? 
Why  have  life,  harmony,  beauty,  intelligence 
emerged?  Evolutionary  philosophy  itself  assures 
us  that  unless  a  factor  is  present  in  the  initial 
stage  of  a  process  it  will  not  emerge  in  the  final 
stage.  We  are  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  there 
has  been  from  the  beginning  a  principle  of  Order 
in  creation.  This  principle  of  Order,  —  what  is  it 
but  an  unmistakable  evidence  and  expression  of 
Mind,  of  Reason,  of  Wisdom?  And  can  Wisdom 
be  less  than  personal?  Here  we  have  reached  the 
prologue  of  the  Fourth  Gospel :  "  In  the  beginning 
was  the  Word."  A  cosmos  demands  a  cosmic 
Christ 

The  world  of  nature,  as  we  know  it  through 
experience,  or  through  reason,  or  however,  is  a 
What  is  realm  of  uniformity.  Science  is  con- 
uniformity?  gtructcd  upon  the  prevalence  of  uni- 
formity. Uniformity  is  not  simply  a  law  that  we 
find  in  nature ;  neither  is  it  a  category  of  the  hu- 
man mind  which  we  impose  upon  nature ;  it  is  a 
synthesis  of  the  Mind  within  nature  and  the  mind 
within  ourselves.  Nothing  will  account  for  the 
law  of  uniformity  in  nature  except  a  divine  Mind, 
a  Logos,  which  precedes  and  underlies  and  per- 
meates the  very  structure  and  process  of  creation, 
constituting  the  universe  a  cosmos  and  not  a  chaos. 

[88] 


The  Cosmic  Christ 


II 


But  is  this  Logos  teleological,  purposive,  be- 
nevolent, as  it  should  be  in  order  to  be  a  true 
Logos?  The  answer  lies  in  the  existence  of  beauty, 
virtue,  personality.  These  realities  are  here ;  sci- 
ence tells  us  that  once  they  were  not  here.  What 
will  account  for  their  coming? 

Beauty  cannot  exist  without  an  eye  and  an  ob- 
ject. It  is  neither  in  the  eye  alone,  nor  in  the 
object  alone,  but  in  that  correspondence  ^he  same 
between  them  which  can  be  explained  \?^,^xJtUx 
only  by  a  common  authorship  of  both.  ^""^  ^"''^ 
The  traveler  looking  down  upon  Interlaken  be- 
holds a  scene  whose  beauty,  as  he  sees  it,  is 
the  result  of  countless  millenniums  of  geologic 
upheaval  and  chemical  alchemy.  And  he  himself, 
as  he  gazes  upon  it,  helping  to  create  for  himself 
the  beauty  which  he  sees,  is  the  result  of  still  more 
marvelous  creative  processes.  Can  the  joy  and 
reverence  with  which  the  conjunction  of  the  scene 
and  of  himself  stirs  his  soul  be  accounted  for 
otherwise  than  by  a  vinculum  uniting  them,  a 
common  relationship  of  both  to  a  Mind,  a  Logos, 
through  which  traveler  and  vale  alike  came  to  be 
what  they  are?  It  is  not  simply,  as  Emerson 
said  to  the  rhodora,  *'  The  self-same  Power  that 
brought  me  here  brought  you.'*  Besides  this,  we 
must  infer  that  the  same  Wisdom  that  created 
and   inheres   in   the   beautiful  flower   or  the    in- 

[89] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

spiring  scene  created  and  inheres  in  the  observer 
and  establishes  the  bond  between  them.  Thus, 
again  we  come  back  to  the  Eternal  Logos,  the 
Cosmic  Christ. 

Futhermore,  the  very  existence  of  personality, 
as   well   as    the    mutual    communication   between 

human  persons,  necessitates  a  Logos 
impS's^l^       philosophy.      Personality   cannot   have 

come  from  impersonality.  The  stream 
does  not  rise  higher  than  its  source.  Nature  pro- 
duces freaks,  but  her  freaks  are  never  finer  than 
her  fruits.  Personality  issuing  from  impersonality 
disrupts  and  derides  every  law  of  science,  and  of  phi- 
losophy, including  that  of  evolution.  Personality 
lives  and  moves  and  has  its  being  in  an  eternal 
order  of  reason  that  is  itself  a  personal,  divine 
Word.  Nor  can  there  be,  as  Horace  Bushnell 
has  said,  any  basis  of  communication  between  per- 
sonalities except  through  the  Logos  that  is  both  in 
themselves  and  in  the  medium  of  communication, 
"  It  is  only  as  there  is  a  Logos  in  the  outward  world, 
answering  to  the  logos  or  eternal  reason  of  the 
parties,  that  they  can  come  into  a  mutual  under- 
standing in  regard  to  any  thought  or  spiritual  state 
whatever."  ^ 

The  Logos  doctrine  seems  to  many,  in  this  sci- 
entific, practical  age,  remote,  speculative,  untenable. 
Yet  Bushnell,  one  of  the  most  vital,  intense,  unfet- 
tered of  modern  thinkers,  is  by  no  means  alone  in 
^  God  in  Christy  p.  21. 

[90] 


The  Cosmic  Christ 

finding  in  the  Logos  theology  the  only  adequate 
interpretation  of  Christ,  of  humanity,  and  of  the 
universe. 

Paul's  Cosmic  Christ  finds  little  recognition  in 
present-day  nature  philosophy,  but  now  and  again 
from  some  deep,  devout,  reflective  mind  come 
words  like  these  from  Alfred  Tennyson :  "  I  firmly 
believe  that  if  God  were  to  withdraw  himself  from 
the  world  around  us  and  from  within  us  but  for  one 
instant,  every  atom  of  creation,  both  animate  and 
inanimate,  would  come  utterly  to  naught,  for  in 
him  alone  do  all  beings  and  things  exist."  This  is 
not  monism.  Taken  in  connection  with  the  poet's 
further  declaration  that  in  Christ  our  higher  nature 
was  **  truly  divine,  the  very  presence  of  the  Father, 
the  one  only  God,  dwelling  in  the  perfect  man," 
it  comes  much  nearer  to  Paul's  word,  **  In  him  all 
things  consist" 

III 

But  any  view  of  nature  which  sees  only  its 
divine  side  and  fails  to  recognize  the  presence  of 
disorder,  disease,  imperfection,  is  rose- 
colored  and  unreasonable.  It  is  useless  darifsiSeof* 
to  close  our  eyes  to  the  frustration,  the 
ineptitude,  the  ugliness,  the  cruelty,  that  nature 
thrusts  before  our  reluctant  vision.  With  pathetic 
bewilderment  the  mind  of  the  trustful  and  sensitive 
child  comes  upon  the  ever-increasing  evidences  of 
pain  and  evil  in  nature,  arousing  in  him  the  ques- 

[91] 


Christ  and  the  Eteryial  Order 

tion  finely  typified  in  the  closing  line  of  William 
Blake's  child-poem,  The  Tiger: 

"  Did  He  who  made  the  lamb  make  thee  ?  " 

What  is  the  meaning  of  it  all?  Is  it  the  blind- 
ness and  stumbling  of  a  self-made,  uncaring  world? 
Or  were  the  Persians  right  in  holding  that  after 
Ormuzd  the  Good  created,  Ahriman  the  Evil  cre- 
ated also?  It  seems  an  insoluble  difficulty,  the 
rock  upon  which  faith  must  go  down.  And  yet 
the  heart  compounds  with  the  eyes  in  approving 
those  words  in  the  old  Hebrew  cosmogony  :  **  And 
God  saw  every  thing  that  he  had  made,  and,  behold, 
it  was  very  good."  And  a  yet  deeper  response  of 
the  soul  answers  the  words  of  the  Logos  hymn : 
"  And  without  him  was  not  anything  made  that 
hath  been  made." 

The  only  solvent  of  this  obstinate  problem  in 
Providence  which  I  have  been  able  to  find  —  and 
Germinal  ^^  IS  but  partial  and  tentative  —  lies 
fo^**S  N«-  Ji^  the  increasing  indications  that  come 
*""  from  science  and  from  nature-study  of 

the  presence  in  nature  of  something  like  freedom 
in  man,  —  the  power,  however  limited,  of  initiation, 
of  experiment,  of  self-development.  Into  the 
ancient  injunction  of  Elohim  to  the  animal  king- 
dom "  be  fruitful  and  multiply,"  we  may  well  read 
a  meaning  larger  than  that  of  mere  reproduction. 
The  potency  of  variation,  the  power  to  develop 
fresh  functions  and  new  forms,  —  this  is  granted  to 

[92] 


The  Cosmic  Christ 

the  lower  forms  of  life.  Creation  provides  both  a 
divine  norm,  resident  in  each  divergent  type,  and 
also  a  certain  range  of  self-activity,  a  field  of  modi- 
fication, a  power  to  the  contrary,  or,  in  other  words, 
scope  for  that  will  to  live,  and  to  live  in  its  own 
way,  which  is  so  manifest  in  all  forms  of  life.  ^ 

With  such  a  field  for  self-energizing,  becoming 
more  and  more  intelligent  as  life  mounts  upward, 
there  is  room,  not  only  for  the  great  voluntary 
divergence  of  vegetable  and  animal  Somufe*^^ 
forms,  but  also  for  that  deflection  from  ^°"" 
the  norm,  that  distortion  and  degeneration,  whose 
effects  we  see  in  the  disease  and  the  deformity 
marring  the  face  of  nature  —  marring  but  not  de- 
spoiling the  beauty,  blurring  but  not  obliterating 
the  meaning,  hindering  but  not  frustrating  the 
divine  purpose  of  perfection.  For  in  nature  as  in 
humanity,  the  tendency  is  upward,  the  light  grows, 
the  divine  purpose  unfolds.  Obnoxious  growths, 
destructive  forces,  venomous  animals,  disappear 
under  the  control  of  man,  God's  agent  and  collab- 
orator. The  comely,  kindly,  and  serviceable  sur- 
vive.    The  meek  inherit  the  earth. 

*  Since  writing  the  above  there  has  come  to  my  attention 
a  scientific  work  of  great  value  which  strikingly  tends  to 
confirm  this  theory  —  ^^  Evolution,  Racial  and  Habitudi- 
nal^'  by  the  veteran  missionary  and  scientist,  John  T.  Gulick, 
published  by  the  Carnegie  University  of  Washington,  D.  C. 
From  a  careful  and  detailed  study  of  the  habits  of  the  snails 
on  the  island  of  Oahu,  Mr.  Gulick  has  demonstrated  the 
preponderance  of  self-initiated  habit  over  environment  in 
determining  the  development  of  new  species. 

[93] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

As  man  advances,  nature  advances.  As  his 
progress  is  dependent  upon  her,  so  is  hers  upon 
Waiting  for  ^^"^-  Long  indeed  has  been  nature's 
?afio!fS*t^  waiting  for  the  manifestation  of  the 
Sons  of  God  gQj^g  q|.  QqJ.  but  at  last  the  self- 
imposed  bondage  of  her  imperfection  has  been 
broken.  The  inalienable  bond  between  man  and 
nature,  constituted  in  that  Eternal  Logos  who  is 
the  sole  interpretation  of  each  to  the  other,  is 
drawing  the  two  into  ever  closer  sympathy  and 
service.  Together  they  move  on  toward  the 
vision  of  the  prophet,  the  apocalypse  of  peace, 
when  "  they  shall  not  hurt  nor  destroy  in  all  my 
holy  mountain." 

Is  there  no  Christ  in  all  this  progress  in  scien- 
tific knowledge?  Is  there  no  Christ-love  in  all  our 
deepening  affection  for  nature?  When  our  eyes 
are  opened  we  shall  see  that  every  newly-known 
force  of  nature  released  for  the  blessing  and  help 
of  man,  every  new  law  that  admits  us  to  a  wider 
knowledge  of  the  cosmos,  every  quickened  insight 
into  the  ongoing  of  nature,  reveals  more  of  that 
Word  which  was  in  the  beginning  with  God, 
through  whom  all  things  were  made,  and  in 
whom  all  are  to  be  consummated. 


[94] 


PART   III 
THE  POTENCIES   OF  CHRIST 


"  A  perfect  man,  of  the  degree  of  the  perfection  of  Jesus  Christ, 
reaching  '  unto  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ,'  is  to  me 
more  incomprehensible,  more  impossible,  than  the  incarnate  Son  of  God. 
I  would  deny  no  essential  likeness  of  the  human  to  the  divine  ;  but  even 
if  we  carry  the  likeness  to  the  possibility  of  a  divine  humanity,  we  are  not 
to  overlook  the  fact  that  a  difference  in  degree  may  amount  to  a  difference 
in  kind.  I  take  a  drop  out  of  the  ocean.  The  drop  is  like  the  ocean,  but 
it  is  swayed  by  no  tides,  it  bears  no  ships  on  its  bosom,  it  does  not  unite 
continents.  I  take  a  grain  of  earth  from  a  mountain.  The  grain  is  like 
the  mountain,  but  I  can  dig  no  quarries  out  of  its  bowels,  I  can  cut  no 
forests  on  its  slopes,  I  do  not  see  it  lifting  its  summits  to  the  first  light 
of  the  day.  Man  may  be  like  God,  but  I  locate  Jesus,  not  in  the  drop  and 
the  grain,  but  in  the  ocean  and  the  mountain.  ...  I  search  among  the 
sons  of  men  of  all  time,  and  I  look  in  vain  for  one  who  had  the  conscious- 
ness of  'life  in  himself.'  ...  No:  any  interpretation  of  the  personal  life 
of  Jesus  Christ  which  can  satisfy  my  mind  must  allow  it  the  substance  and 
quality  and  fulness  of  the  life  of  God.  I  grant  the  mystery  of  the  Incar- 
nation, but  I  prefer  mystery  to  insufficiency  in  my  faith.  As  I  watch  the 
process  by  which  men  are  made  to  become  sons  of  God,  as  I  follow  the 
stream  of  human  redemption  in  its  ceaseless  and  widening  course,  I  can 
trace  it  to  no  other  or  nearer  source  than  the  Eternal  Sonship  of  Jesus 
Christ."  —  President  William  Jewktt  Tucker,  D.D.,  Life  in 
Himself:  A  Meditation  on  the  Consciousness  of  Jesus  Christ. 


XIII 

CHRIST   PRE-PRESENT  AND   PRE-POTENT 

The  term  "  preexistent,"  as  applied  to  Christ,  is 
open  to  three  objections:  —  (i)  As  a  simple  time- 
affirmation  it  is  empty  of  content ;  mere 

,  ,         ,  Preexistence 

previous  existence  is  a  barren  and  color-  a  barren 

,  ^    N.     T     •  affirmation 

less  predicate.  (2)  It  is  unrelated  and 
discrete  in  significance;  such  a  Christ  might  be 
anything  or  nothing,  so  far  as  his  relation  to 
God  and  man  is  concerned.  (3)  Even  in  its  time- 
affirmation  the  term  is  uncertain  and  insufficient; 
for  it  affirms  nothing  as  to  the  duration  of  Christ's 
preexistence.  Ever-existent  would  be  a  more 
adequate  term.  There  is,  in  truth,  but  one  term 
that  suffices  to  define  the  relation  of  Christ  to 
time  —  the  term  eternal.  The  Eternal  Christ  tran- 
scends time  as  a  part  of  his  supremacy  over  all 
limitations.  It  is  this  truth  of  the  eternity  of 
Christ  that  theology  was  striving  after  when  it 
accepted  and  canonized  the  conception  of  pre- 
existence. 

I 

As  an  aid   to   the   conception   of  the  Eternal 
Christ,   the    designation  pre-present  is   preferable 

7  [97] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

in  many  respects  to  preexistent.  The  Pre-pre- 
sent  Christ  is  the  Christ  present  before  the  in- 
Pre-present  a  camation,  not  Only  with  God  the  Father 
better  term  ^^^  ^^j^j^  ^^^  Creation,  but  also  with  hu- 
manity. In  this  usage  the  term  pre-presence 
may  be  taken  to  denote  the  transcending  of  place, 
somewhat  as  eternal  transcends  time,  conveying 
us  into  the  realm  of  pure,  not  spatial,  relations. 
Indeed  the  word  has  already  been  elevated 
to  this  signification  in  the  term  omnipresence, 
—  a  presence  that  is  super- spatial y  rather  than 
spatial. 

The  pre-presence  of  Christ  is  much  nearer  the 

New  Testament  representation  than  preexistence. 

The   Logos   of  the   Fourth    Gospel    is 

Eternal  Life  ,  .  •  ^       ^    .      • 

richer  than      much  more  than  a  preexistent  bemg; 

Preexistence      ,         .  •  t         i         t    /-     • 

he  is  present  with  the  Infinite  as  the 
eternal  Outflow  of  his  Being,  the  Revelation  of  his 
Nature,  the  Word  of  his  Wisdom.  By  virtue  of 
this  very  relation  to  God  he  is  present  too  in  crea- 
tion as  its  interior  structural  Secret,  the  Process 
and  Pattern  of  its  final  perfection ;  present,  also, 
with  humanity,  as  the  Light  that  lighteth  every 
man  coming  into  the  world.  Christ  himself,  as 
interpreted  by  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
speaks  not  so  much  of  his  preexistence  as  of  his 
pre-presence.  If  he  were  asserting  merely  his 
preexistence  it  would  have  been  more  to  the  pur- 
pose to  say.  Before  Abraham  was  born,  I  was. 
Instead  of  that  his  assertion  is,  "Before  Abraham 
[98] 


Christ  Pre-present  and  Pre-potent 

was  born,  I  am''  This  is  an  affirmation  of  eter- 
nity, of  the  transcendence  of  time,  rather  than  of 
mere  previous  existence  in  time.  The  time  content 
is  too  narrow  and  confined  for  Christ's  conscious- 
ness. He  breaks  it  and  throws  it  from  him  that 
he  may  breathe  more  deeply  in  the  freedom  of 
the  eternal  life.  Yet  the  eternal  life  of  which  he 
speaks  so  confidently  as  his,  both  to  possess  and 
to  impart,  is  never  spoken  of  by  him  as  separate 
and  solipsistic.  Always  it  is  intimately  associated 
by  him  with  his  Father.  His  own  life  and  glory 
are  ever  "  with  the  Father." 

The  Christology  of  Paul,  too,  is  a  Christology 
of  eternal  presence  rather  than  of  preexistence. 
Christ  is  not  only  before  all  things,  but  Christ  pre- 
in   him   all  things   consist.      He  is  the   P,°en"as*^ 
spiritual  Rock  from  which  the  people  p'-^-p'-"^"* 
of  God  drank,  the  Rock  that  followed  them  in  all 
their  wayward  wandering.     He  is  the  Mediator  of 
universal  reconciliation  unto  God.     Thus   potent 
and  pervasive  is  his  relationship  to  the  universe. 
Indeed  this  Christ  of  Paul  is  pre-potent  as  well  as 
pre-present.     He  is  the  active  Principle,  or  rather 
the    active    Personality,  through  whom    God    has 
been   moving  upon  his  world  and  within   it,  the 
mysterious,  indwelling  Presence  who  has  been  the 
hidden  source  and  inspiration  of  all  goodness  and 
truth,  of  all  progress  and  all  hope.     In  a  word,  he 
he  is  not  merely  a  preexistent  Christ  but  a  pre- 
present,  pre-potent  Christ. 
[99] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 


II 

But  how  is  this  eternally  present  and  potent 
Christ  related  to  the  simple,  understandable,  com- 
A  query  municable,  human  Jesus  of  the  Synoptic 

*™**  Gospels?     Is    there    any   vital    associa- 

tion? Are  not  the  two  figures  incongruous  and 
irreconcilable?  At  first,  it  seems  so.  Our  sen- 
sations in  trying  to  identify  the  two  may  be  com- 
pared to  those  of  a  child  when,  for  the  first  time, 
he  sees  his  father,  whom  he  has  known  only  in  the 
familiar  contact  of  the  home,  upon  whose  knee  he 
has  sat,  and  whom  he  has  caressed,  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  a  wider  and  more  august  relationship,  as 
a  judge  on  the  bench,  or  a  minister  in  the  pul- 
pit, honored,  revered,  exalted.  Is  this  the  same 
person  with  whom  he  has  romped  in  the  nurs- 
ery and  roamed  in  the  fields?  The  child  comes 
to  the  consciousness  of  the  identity  with  wonder- 
ment. Somewhat  similar  is  our  own  growing  ex- 
perience of  the  wider  relationships,  the  deeper 
meaning,  the  universal  glory,  of  the  Christ  whom 
we  have  first  known  in  his  Galilean  simplicity. 


Ill 

How  can  the  same  Christ  be  Plato's  Light  and 

mine,  Simon  Peter's  Saviour  and  my  neighbor's? 

How  can  he  be  eternal  and  yet  have  a  place  in 

history,  cosmic  yet  human,  racial  yet  a  Jew,  uni- 

[  100  ] 


Christ  Pre-present  and  Pre-potent 

versal  yet  an  individual?  The  key  to  the  solution 
of  this  mystery,  the  reconciliation  of  this  antinomy, 
lies  in  part  in  the  relation  of  personality 

.     .  -r,  1'  •  •       Personality 

to  individuality.  Personality  is  possi-  vs.  individu- 
ble  without  individuality.  God  is  a 
person,  but  not  an  individual.  Individuality,  too, 
can  exist  without  personality.  There  is  individu- 
ality among  animals,  but  no  personality.  There  is 
even  a  suggestion  of  individuality  among  crystals, 
but  certainly  none  of  personality.  In  humanity, 
personality  and  individuality  are  always  conjoined. 
We  know  no  person  who  is  not  an  individual ;  we 
know  no  individual  who  is  not,  at  least  incipiently, 
a  person.  Jesus  was  both  person  and  individual. 
The  Logos  is  intensely  personal  but  not  individual. 
Individuality  is  limiting,  personality  is  free.  As 
an  individual,  Jesus  was  born,  lived,  and  died ; 
that  is,  he  had  a  temporal  existence.  The  Eternal 
Christ,  the  Logos,  has  an  eternal  existence,  apart 
from  time,  above  time.  But  time  and  eternity, 
history  and  heaven,  are  not  unrelated  and  incom- 
municable. The  Eternal  Christ  incarnated  himself 
in  the  individual  Jesus.  The  Word  became  flesh. 
This  involved  kenosis,  self-limitation,  humiliation, 


but  not  degradation. 


IV 


The  preexistence  or  pre-presence  of  Jesus,  as  an 
individual,  is  unreasonable ;  it  is  the  Logos  who  is 
preexistent.     To  assert  the  existence  of  the  man, 

[lOl] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

the   individual,  Jesus,  before  his  birth  except  in 

the  purpose  of  God,  is  to  resolve  his  humanity  into 

a  phantom :    it  is  no  more  nor  less  than 

The  Logos  t^  .  /^         , 

not  Jesus,        Docetism.     On  the  other  hand,  the  Lo- 

pre-present  i        •      i         i      •       t 

gos  who  mdvvelt  ni  Jesus,  transfusing  his 
whole  self  with  a  divine  personality,  must  have 
been,  not  only  preexistent  with  God,  but  pre- 
present  in  humanity,  as  the  source  of  all  its  light 
and  its  virtue.  Before  the  incarnation  the  Logos 
was  in  men  genetically,  partially;  in  the  incarna- 
tion he  took  possession  of  one  vian^  completely 
controlling  his  whole  being,  raising  his  humanity 
to  its  highest  exercise  and  fusing  it  with  Deity. 
At  least  this  is  the  nearest  we  can  come  to  the 
interpretation  of  this  divine  mystery.  The  depth 
of  the  mystery  we  may  not  penetrate.  Indeed  we 
cannot  penetrate  the  mystery  of  physical  life  and 
how  can  we  expect  to  penetrate  this?  The  very 
terms  in  which  we  attempt  to  state  it  are  but  ac- 
commodations, adaptations,  essays  at  a  meaning 
which  lies  beyond  our  reach. 

It  is  easy  to  call  this  "  speculation  "  and  taboo 
it.  It  is  far  simpler  and  easier  to  rate  Jesus  as  an 
exceptionally  good  and  wise  man  and  stop  with 
that.  But  the  easy  explanation,  the  surface  valu- 
ation, is  not  satisfying.  And  something  in  the 
unique  and  perduring  personality  of  Jesus  has 
compelled  men  to  seek  a  deeper  secret  to  account 
for  him.  The  impulse  has  led,  it  is  true,  to  mysti- 
cism, extravagance,  speculation,  but  in  all  the  fan- 
[  102  ] 


Christ  P re-present  and  P re-potent 

tastic  and  futile  attempts  to  interpret  this  mystery- 
there  is  the  persistent  conviction  that,  in  some  way 
or  other,  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  peculiarly  related  to 
the  Eternal  God,  to  his  universe,  and  to  humanity. 
Above  time,  around  time,  through  time  and  into 
time,  flows  this  eternal,  timeless  revelation  of  God, 
this  vital,  personal,  present  Word,  this  pre-present, 
pre-potent,  indwelling  Christ. 


[i°3] 


XIV 

CHRIST   INDWELLING 

An  absentee  Christ  were  no  better  than  an  ab- 
sentee God.     And  a  Christ  who  visited  the  earth 
but  once —  for  a  mere  pin-point  of  time 

An  absentee  •  ,      i  -n  •  1,1 

Saviour insuf.  amid  the  millenniums — would  be  vir- 

ficient 

tually  an  absentee  Christ.  Not  such  is 
the  Christ  of  the  New  Testament,  nor  of  Christian 
theology.^  To  be,  in  any  true  sense,  a  Saviour  of 
humanity,  Christ  must  have  been  always,  as  he  is 
now,  a  present  Saviour.  And  there  is  only  one 
way  in  which  he  can  be  a  present  Christ,  and  that 
is  as  an  Indwelling  Christ. 

I 

To  speak  of  Christ  as  indwelling  at  once  creates 
hesitation  and  confusion  in  many  minds  because 
Immanence  °^  ^^  difficulty  of  concciving  him  as,  at 
Ionaiity,°nor"  ^hc  samc  time,  with  the  Father  in  heaven 
to  Place  ^^^  ^j^j^  ^^^  ^^  earth.     It  is  in  reality 

the  same  difficulty  that  arises  in  harmonizing  the 
Divine  transcendence  and  the  Divine  immanence. 

*  "  The  Logos  has  not  entered  abruptly  or  from  without 
into  humanity;  but  He  was  ever  in  the  world."  Dorner, 
System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  342. 

[  104] 


Christ  Indwelling 

In  terms  of  locality  such  a  harmony  is  quite  im- 
possible. It  is  necessary  to  lay  aside  entirely  all 
ideas  of  place,  and  to  think  of  the  relation  only  in 
terms  of  compatibility  and  personality.  Is  there 
any  reason  why  a  higher  personality  should  not 
indwell  in  —  that  is,  constantly  influence  and  move, 
and,  if  permitted,  direct  and  mold,  —  a  lower  per- 
sonality }  An  ardent  advocate  of  free  will  might 
protest  that  this  would  annul  freedom ;  but  only  if 
influence  were  compulsory  and  restrictive.  When 
the  influence  of  one  person  over  another,  as  in  the 
case  of  Christ  and  the  soul,  is  purely  rational  and 
persuasive,  and  in  the  direction  of  the  highest 
activity  and  well-being,  freedom  is  promoted,  not 
retarded. 

Eliminating  the  notion  of  locality,  there  is  no  in- 
herent difficulty  in  conceiving  of  God  as  at  once 
transcendent  and  immanent.  "  For  thus  saith  the 
high  and  lofty  One  that  inhabiteth  eternity,  whose 
name  is  Holy :  I  dwell  in  the  high  and  holy  place, 
with  him  also  that  is  of  a  contrite  and  humble 
spirit"  Nor  is  there  any  greater  difficulty  in  con- 
ceiving of  Christ  as  at  the  same  time  dwelling  with 
the  Father  in  light  everlasting  and  in  the  human 
heart. 

II 

It  is  Paul  again  who  leads  the  thought  of  Chris- 
tianity to  the  Indwelling  Christ.     In  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans  (8:  lo  and  lo:  8)  and  in  the  Second 
[  i°S  ] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  (13:  5)  he  affirms  the 
presence  of  Christ  in  the  disciple,  and  in  the  strik- 
ing passage  in  Colossians  (i :  26,  27)  he 

Paul  and  the  b    t'  S  V  .       // 

Indwelling  spcaks  of  "  the  mystery  which  hath 
been  hid  from  the  ages  and  from  the 
generations :  but  now  hath  it  been  manifested  to  his 
saints,  to  whom  God  was  pleased  to  make  known 
what  is  the  riches  of  the  glory  of  this  mystery  among 
the  [you]  Gentiles,  which  is  Christ  in. you,  the  hope 
of  glory." 

The  passage  is  difficult  and  admits  of  several  in- 
terpretations. 'Ej/  may  mean  among  or  it  may 
Christ  in  mean  /;//  the  latter,  as  Lightfoot  says, 
y°"  seems    the    more    probable.     But    the 

chief  problem  is  whether  ^^«  means  ^^//  Gentiles  or 
yon  disciples  among  the  Gentiles.  The  second 
meaning  goes  better  with  the  allusions  to  the  In- 
dwelling Christ  in  the  earlier  epistles  referred  to, 
where  the  allusion  is  to  Christ  within  the  soul 
of  the  Christian,  but  the  former  meaning  fulfils 
far  better  the  figure  of  the  mystery  of  which  the 
apostle  here  makes  so  much.  Is  the  mystery 
simply  that  the  Gentiles  should  come  to  believe  in 
a  Jewish  Messiah,  or  is  it,  rather,  that  the  invisible 
Christ  who  had  been  among  them,  in  them,  through 
all  the  ages  and  generations,  now  at  length,  through 
Jesus,  is  manifested  to  them  in  the  clear  light  of 
revelation  ?  ^ 

*  That  this  representation  of  Christ  is  given  in  the  New 
Testament  did  not  escape  Calvin,  who  defined  the  gospel  as 

[106] 


Christ  Indwelling 

It  is  not  sufficiently  certain  that  this  is  Paul's 
meaning,  to  conclude  from  these  words  alone 
that  he  teaches  a  universal  indwelling  other pas- 
of  Christ,  but  something  not  very  far  ^^^^^ 
short  of  this  is  certainly  implied ;  and  when,  in 
the  speech  on  Mars  Hill,  he  avers,  "  He  is  not 
far  from  each  one  of  us,"  he  teaches  a  Divine 
Immanence  of  which  the  Indwelling  Christ  is  but 
the  fuller  explanation.  Nor  in  this  teaching  does 
Paul  stand  alone  in  the  New  Testament.  The 
author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  could  hardly  have 
given  to  this  truth  of  a  universally  indwelling 
Christ  a  more  emphatic,  certainly  he  could  not 
have  given  it  a  more  beautiful  and  undying,  ex- 
pression than  in  the  words :  "  There  was  the  true 
light,  .  .  .  which  lighteth  every  man,  coming  into 
the  world." 

Ill 
*' There  is  something  good  in  every  man,"  we 
are  wont  to  say,  with  a  firm  conviction  that  in  the 
affirmation    we    have    touched    a    vital 

1  T^r    11         1  1  •         1  .  "Something 

truth.     Well,  then,   what  is  this  some-  good  in  every 

man  " 

thing  good?     It  is  reason,  moral  sense, 
conscience.     Yes,  but  if  these  are  only  automatic 
endowments,  inherited  instincts,  functional  adjuncts 
of  man's  personality,  they  may  be  vestiges  of  a  dis- 
tant Creator,  but  they  are  not  pledges  of  a  present 

"  the  clear  manifestation  of  the  mystery  of  Christ,"  yet  con- 
fined the  Christ  mystery  to  the  Old  Testament. 

[107] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

Redeemer,  man  is  God's  creature  but  not  his 
child,  there  is  no  vital  kinship  and  communion 
between  the  Divine  and  the  human.  What  if,  on 
the  other  hand,  Reason  and  Conscience  are  God 
speaking  within  us,  Christ  indwelHng  in  us,  the  seal 
of  our  sonship,  the  hope  of  glory?  The  "some- 
thing   good "    within    us    becomes    no 

Someone  , 

good  in  every   longer  a  thmg  but  a  Person,  a  Some 

man  **  ° 

One  that  makes  for  righteousness,  that 
impels  us  on  toward  that  fulfilled  personality  which 
consists  in  complete  union  with  himself. 

This  Indwelling  Christ  is  a  racial  as  well  as  an 
individual  Presence,  and  the  individual  is  largely 
One  Christ  of   dependent  for  the  strength  and  vivid- 
Indofthe^      ness  of  the  Christ-mystery  within  him 
***  upon  inherited  attitude,  moral  training, 

religious  instruction.  But  these,  potent  as  they 
are,  do  not  supply  conscience,  nor  furnish  spiritual 
life,  nor  insert  Christ  into  his  soul.  They  do  but 
arouse,  awaken,  appeal  to  a  life,  a  possession,  a 
Christ,  within  the  individual  that  is  his  own,  — not 
apart  from  the  race,  but  through  the  race.  Christ 
is,  as  Ritschlianism  insists,  a  possession  of  the 
Christian  community,  and  can  be  appropriated  by 
the  individual  only  through  the  mediation  of  the 
community,  but  he  is  also,  in  a  less  vivid  form, 
a  possession  of  the  race,  a  Conscience,  a  Moral 
Reason  which  the  individual  receives  only  through 
the  race,  mediated  to  him  through  the  channel  of 
racial  and  ancestral  inheritance  and  training.  But 
[108] 


Christ  Indwelling 

more  than  this,  there  is  also  a  revelation  of  Christ 
to  the  individual^  a  Mystery  of  his  own,  clouded  or 
clarified  by  the  racial  medium  through  which  his 
whole  life  and  selfhood  comes,  but  still  his  own. 
And  his  attitude  toward  this  inner  revelation  de- 
termines his  development  and  destiny. 

IV 

It  has  always  puzzled  theologians  to  account  for 
the  deeds  of  virtue  and  honor  which  light  up  the 
pagan  world.  What  is  their  source  and  The  source  of 
what  their  explanation?  Some  have  so  ^^ 
far  outraged  truth  as  to  call  them  splendida  vitiUy 
beautiful  but  deceptive  flowers  growing  out  of  a 
corrupt  soil,  utterly  destitute  of  worth  or  holiness, 
because  not  springing  from  a  regenerate  principle 
within.  Others  have  estimated  these  deeds  over- 
highly,  and  held  them  up  to  show  to  what  heights 
unaided  humanity  can  attain.  The  one  explana- 
tion is  as  far  from  the  truth  as  the  other.  Was 
God  absent  from  the  human  heart  before  the 
Christian  revelation?  Was  there  ever  a  noble 
deed  or  a  true  word  that  was  not  God-inspired? 
No.  A  divine  Mystery  underlay  all  that  was 
noble,  true,  and  beautiful  in  Greek  and  Roman  as 
well  as  Hebrew.  That  Mystery  was  "  Christ  in 
you,  the  hope  of  glory."  He  was  the  justice  of 
Aristides,  the  wisdom  of  Plato,  the  heroism  of 
Leonidas.  If  not,  what  was  the  source  of  that 
justice,  virtue,  wisdom  ?  Surely  it  was  not  solely 
[  109  ] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

human.  And  if  the  divine  was  interblended,  was 
it  not  the  presence  of  the  yet  unveiled  Christ,  the 
Immanuel,  the  Eternal  Son,  the  Light  that  lightcth 
every  man  coming  into  the  world  —  then  a  Mys- 
tery, now  a  Manifestation?  And  if  Christ  was  in 
the  world  before  he  came  in  the  flesh,  surely  he  is 
in  men  now,  and  in  all  men  of  whatever  race  and 
religion.  Yes,  Christ  is  in  the  heathen  heart. 
Dim,  indeed,  is  his  image,  faint  the  whisper  of  his 
voice,  but  he  is  there.  How  else  can  we  explain 
the  reception  which  the  Gospel  meets  as  it  falls 
from  the  lips  of  the  missionary?  "  Yes,  that  is  my 
Saviour  of  whom  you  have  told  me.  I  have  known 
him  long."  Is  not  this  the  Mystery  coming  forth 
to  meet  and  claim  the  Manifestation? 

Only  by  asserting  this  organic  relation  of  every 
man  to  Christ  can  we  convince  men  of  their  obli- 
Every  human  gations  toward  Jcsus.     Only  by  attribut- 

virtuc  Christ's   .  n  /■  i  i 

mg  every  outnow  of  moral  goodness  to 
its  source  in  Christ  can  we  give  him  his  true  place 
in  the  human  heart.  It  is  time  we  had  done  with 
accounting  for  the  sweet  and  gracious  lives,  or  the 
brave  and  unselfish  deeds  of  men  and  women  who 
are  not  professedly  Christians  as  the  exalted 
products  of  human  attainment.  If  they  can  be  as 
gentle,  as  pure  and  as  true  without  Christ  as  we 
are  with  him,  then  is  our  faith  vain.  But  it  is  not 
without  Christ.  Is  there  any  radiant  human  grace 
in  any  life?  —  it  is  Christ-begotten.  It  is  this 
presence  of  Christ  which  we  see  in  each  other's 
[i.o] 


Christ  Indwelling 

lives,  this  pure  radiance  which  illumines  the  good 
and  even  gleams  fitfully  at  times  from  those  not 
wholly  evil,  that  gives  life  all  its  worth  and 
beauty.^ 

"And  every  virtue  we  possess. 
And  every  virtue  won, 
And  every  thought  of  holiness, 
Is  his  and  his  alone." 


But  if  this  presence  of  the  Indwelling  Christ  is 
universal,  if  Christ  is  in  every  man,  what  advan- 
tage hath  the  Christian?  What  is  the  difference 
between  the  man  who  has  received  Christ,  and  is 
born  again,  and  the  man  who  has  not  received 
him?  All  the  difference  between  being  saved  and 
being  unsaved.  It  makes  a  heaven-wide  differ- 
ence whether  Christ  is  in  the  heart  as  Ruler  or 
Remonstrator ;  whether  he  is  there  as  the  accepted 

^  A  number  of  writers,  notably  Rev.  E.  M.  Chapman  in 
his  stimulating  volume,  The  Dynamic  of  Christiattityy  con- 
ceive of  this  universal  indwelling  source  of  virtue  and  truth 
as  the  Holy  Spirit,  rather  than  the  Christ.  In  one  way  the 
difference  is  not  vital.  "Now  the  Lord  is  the  Spirit." 
Wherever  the  Christ  is  the  Spirit  is,  and  vice  versa.  But 
with  the  Spirit,  rather  than  the  Christ  as  the  source  of  pre- 
Christian  and  extra-Christian  goodness,  many  persons  are 
likely  to  miss  the  significance  of  the  incarnation,  and  the  old 
confusion  concerning  Christ  remains ;  whereas  the  univer- 
sal presence  of  Christ  involves  that  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

[..I] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

Light,  the  Guide  of  life,  or  as  a  Light  breaking 
fitfully  through  the  darkness;  whether  the  Light 
Accepting  ^^  ovcrcoming  the  darkness  or  the  dark- 
t^c  inne?'°^  ness  the  Light ;  whether  a  man  prefers 
^^"^^^  darkness  to   light,  or  light  to  darkness. 

Receiving  Christ  the  Mystery,  leads  to  receiving 
Jesus  the  Manifestation.  Whether  the  Christ 
within  shall  be  a  dying  hope,  a  retreating  pres- 
ence, or  an  ever-brightening  glory,  depends  upon 
will  and  conduct.  With  attitude  toward  the  In- 
dwelling Christ  is  intimately  involved  attitude 
toward  the  Historic  Christ.  The  two  blend  into 
each  other.  The  Christ  of  the  inward  mystery 
and  the  outward  manifestation  are  the  same.  If 
we  are  of  the  TriitJi  we  hear  his  voice. 

There  are  two  objections  that  naturally  arise  in 
this  connection,  which,  though  alluded  to  else- 
where, demand  further  consideration.  The  first 
of  these  objections  is:  What  is  the  need  and  value 
of  the  Manifestation,  if  such  is  the  worth  of  the 
Mystery?  The  answer  is:  Sunlight  is  better  than 
twilight,  —  though  it  is  always  preceded  by  twi- 
light. Humanity  stumbled  in  the  twilight;  it  is 
learning  to  walk  securely  in  the  Light. 

Nor  is  the  Christ —  this  is  essential  to  the  under- 
standing of  him  —  merely  a  revealing  Personality, 
Christ  but  an  enabling  Personality.     That  is, 

enabling  men  j^^  j^  accompanicd,  in  a  measure  that 
the  prehistoric  Christ  could  not  be,  by  the  Holy 
Spirit.     It  is  his  not  only  to  reveal  the  Father,  but 

[..2] 


Christ  Indwellhtg 

to  enable  men  to  reach  the  Father.  Revealing  the 
Father  without  potentializing  man  were  an  unavail- 
ing and  insufficient  service.  Christ  does  far  more 
than  that.  No  better  instance  of  the  enabling 
power  of  Jesus  Christ  can  be  found  than  that  con- 
tained in  the  "  Confessions "  of  Augustine.  In 
describing  his  progress  into  the  light,  Augustine 
thus  refers  to  the  influence  upon  him  of  Platon- 
ism :  "  By  the  study  of  the  Platonist  books  I  was 
taught  to  seek  for  the  incorporeal  Truth,  and  be- 
held Thy  invisible  things  understood  by  the  things 
that  are  made,  and  though  cast  back,  I  felt  what 
the  dullness  of  my  soul  did  not  permit  me  to  gaze 
upon,  I  had  no  doubt  that  Thou  art,  and  that  Thou 
art  infinite.  ...  Of  all  this  I  was  convinced,  yet 
was  I  too  weak  to  enjoy  Thee.  I  prated  like  One 
who  knew,  yet,  unless  I  found  Thy  way  in  Christ 
our  Saviour,  what  I  deemed  true,  was  like  to  end 
in  rue."  ^ 

In  these  words  is  disclosed,  through  the  medium 
of  a  personal  experience,  that  which  is,  equally 
with  revelation,  the  great  office  of  the  Son  of  God 
—  to  impart  not  only  sight  but  strength,  not  only 
the  knowledge  of  the  Infinite,  but  strength  to  enjoy 
him,  —  without  which  strength,  knowledge  is  but 
a  mocking  futility. 

It  is  in  enabling  power,  as  well  as  in  revealing 
power,  that  Jesus,  the  incarnate,  visualized,  indi- 
vidualized Christ,  exceeds  the  Logos,  the  Mystery, 
1  Chapter  xx. 
8  C"3] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

the  prehistoric  Christ, —  thus  constituting  Christian- 
ity the  universal  religion.  The  Person  who  moved, 
darkling  and  indistinct,  behind  the  forces  of  Nature 
and  within  the  heart  of  Humanity,  could  not,  ipso 
facto,  have  the  same  commanding  glory  as  when  he 
stood  forth,  visual  and  distinct,  upon  the  field  of 
history.  If  we  ask,  why  then  was  not  the  mani- 
festation earlier  made?  the  answer  is,  it  could  not 
be.  In  order  to  be  historical,  the  Incarnation 
must  needs  occur  at  some  point  in  history.  That 
point,  that  moment,  was  the  divinely  opportune 
one.  **  When  the  fulness  of  the  time  came,  God 
sent  forth  his  Son."  Nothing  could  lend  such 
centrality  and  significance  to  the  Incarnation  as  a 
historical  event,  as  to  have  it  the  unfolding  and 
outshining  of  a  Reality,  a  Personality,  already  per- 
ceived and  felt,  but  not  clearly  understood  —  rather 
than  the  advent  of  a  new  and  hitherto  unknown 
manifestation  of  the  Godhead. 

The  second  objection  is  one  arising  from  the 
mystical  character  of  the  theory,  and  formulates 
itself  somewhat  as  follows :  *'  This  is  a  needless  and 
senseless  obscuration;  all  that  you  mean  is  that 
there  is  a  certain  responsiveness  in  the  human 
heart  to  the  presentation  of  moral  obligation  and 
of  the  claims  of  the  gospel."  But  what  is  this  re- 
sponsiveness? Is  it  a  mere  quality  or  capacity 
that  has  been  inserted  or  grown  up  in  my  soul? 
Is  it  mine,  simply  and  solely,  —  a  part  of  myself? 
If  so,  I  may  do  what  I  choose  with  it,  accounta- 
["4] 


Christ  Indwelling 

ble  only  to  myself.  But  if  it  is  not  mine  alone, 
but  God  has  placed  it  within  me,  is  it  a  mere 
product  of  his  will,  or  is  it  not  rather  chnstthe 
himself,  his  Logos,  his  nature,  in  me?  S'see^d^o^fThe 
My  sin  may  have  corrupted  all  the  ^°"* 
rest  of  my  being,  but  this  it  cannot  touch,  for 
it  is  mine,  yet  not  mine;  in  me,  yet  not  of  me. 
This  is  the  divine  spark,  ih^  fitnkelem  of  the  Mys- 
tics. It  is  this  of  which  William  Law  writes,  so 
raptly  yet  so  rationally :  "  If  Christ  was  to  raise  a 
new  life  like  his  own  in  every  man,  then  every  man 
must  have  had  originally  in  the  inmost  spirit  of  his 
life  a  seed  of  Christ,  or  Christ  as  a  seed  of  heaven, 
lying  there  in  a  state  of  insensibility,  out  of  which 
it  could  not  arise  but  by  the  mediatorial  power  of 
Christ.  .  .  .  For  what  could  begin  to  deny  self,  if 
there  was  not  something  in  man  different  from 
self?  .  .  .  The  Word  of  God  is  the  hidden  treasure 
of  every  human  soul,  immured  under  flesh  and 
blood,  till  as  a  day-star  it  arises  in  our  hearts,  and 
changes  the  son  of  an  earthly  Adam  into  a  son  of 
God."  1 

But  it  is  not  in  the  Mystics  alone  that  this  truth 
finds  recognition.  Alike  in  religious  philosophy 
and  religious  devotion,  there  is  found  frequent  and 
convincing  utterance  of  this  truth  of  an  indwelling 
divine  Mystery,  —  which  is  "  Christ  in  you,  the 
hope  of  glory." 

^  See  Inge :  Christian  Mysticism^  p.  283. 
["S] 


XV 

CHRIST   IN    CONSCIENCE 

The  most  impressive  fact  in  life,  to  the  reflecting 

mind,  is  the  sense  of  duty.      That  a  being  with 

such  a  nature  as  ours,  swayed  by  such 

The  Mystery  ,  .  .... 

and  Might  appctitcs  and  passions,  such  ambitions 
and  fancies,  should  be  invisibly  re- 
strained on  all  sides  but  the  highest,  and  on  that 
side  moved  imperatively  toward  that  which  is 
worthiest  for  oneself  and  best  for  society,  —  this, 
surely,  is  most  significant.  The  counter  fact  of 
disregard  of  duty  has  dulled  us  to  the  greater  fact 
of  duty  itself  A  moment's  reflection  restores  our 
wonder.  Here,  in  this  mysterious  sense  of  duty, 
is  an  invisible,  intangible  power  that  enters  into 
every  life,  and  every  day  of  every  life,  with  greater 
or  less  control,  as  the  great  conservator  of  society. 
Without  it  humanity  would  hasten  rapidly  to  de- 
generation, perhaps  to  destruction.  It  is  the 
balance-wheel  of  social  relations,  the  savior  of 
humanity. 

Very  commonly,  and  very  misleadingly,  duty  is 
thought  of  as  a  majestic  impersonality,  an  uncon- 
scious law,  like  that  of  gravitation,  that  knows  neither 
its  author,  its  purpose,  nor  its  objects.     But  duty 
[ii6] 


Christ  in  Conscience 

IS  such  only  to  withholden  eyes.  We  come  up 
against  duty  as  against  a  blank  wall,  only  to 
find  stone  and  mortar  resolving  into  in-  j^^y  ^^^ 
telligence  and  love,  —  not  less  firm,  but  '^^"^^^^^ 
less  forbidding.  Duty  often  seems  cruel,  only  to 
prove  kind.  We  feel  its  grasp  as  of  an  iron  vice, 
but  when  we  yield  it  proves  the  hold  of  a  divine 
Hand. 


The  only  adequate  account  of  duty  is  that  it  is 
the  reflection  of  the  personal  will  of  God.     This 
alone  explains  its  power,  its  purposeful- 
ness,  and  its  personal  character.     Every  in  the  wm 

,  of  God 

attempt  to  mterpret  duty  as  custom  oper- 
ating  in  consciousness  fails  before  the  question. 
Why  does  obligation  continue  to  be  imperative 
when  it  ceases  to  be  instinctive?  The  sense  of 
obligation  refuses  to  lend  itself  to  any  solution 
save  that  it  originates  in  the  rational  appeal  of  a 
higher  will  to  ours,  in  freedom.  Through  duty 
God  makes  his  will  known  to  us  as  it  relates  to  our 
human  life  and  conduct. 

If  duty  reflects  the  will  of  God,  conscience  may 
be  called  the  voice  of  God.  It  is  a  familiar  meta- 
phor and  a  true  one.     The  language  of 

,  ,  -  Conscience 

conscience   may  not  always  be  under-  the  voice 

of  God 

Stood,  but  the  voice  is  recognized.     Its 
tones,  heard  in  the  silences  of  the  soul,  too  musical 
and  deep  for  a  whisper,  are  characterized  by  an 
C"7] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

authority  and  finality  which  belong  only  to  that 
which  is  eternal.  To  make  conscience  the  imper- 
sonal communication  of  an  impersonal  law  would 
argue  an  impersonal  God,  and  leave  duty  a  puzzle 
in  evolution.  Kant  recognized  the  real  source  of 
duty  when  he  defined  religion  as  the  recognition 
of  all  our  duties  as  divine  commands. 

If  duty  is  thus  personal  and  conscience  revela- 
tory, there  must  be  relationship  here  to  the  Christ, 
the  personal  Revealer  of  God.  Without  such  a 
relationship  of  Christ  to  conscience  it  is  impossible 
to  reconcile  our  Christianity  with  our  psychology, 
our  philosophy  with  our  faith.  If,  as  Christianity 
affirms,  to  obey  Christ  is  to  fulfil  conscience,  then 
to  obey  conscience  is,  in  some  sense,  to  obey 
Christ.  Once  more  we  are  brought  back  to  the 
immanent  Christ,  who  is  in  us,  not  only  as  the 
hope  of  glory,  but  also  as  the  guide  to  conduct, 
the  voice  of  duty. 

II 

The   need  of  a  closer  correlation  of  Christian 

experience  with  the  moral  nature  upon  which  it 

rests,  has  long  been  felt.     If  Christian 

Christian  .  .  .  in* 

experience       experience  is  treated  as  wholly  unique 

normal 

and  peculiar,  wholly  unrelated  to  the 
laws  and  processes  of  moral  life,  it  can  have 
neither  a  rationale  nor  an  apologetic.  Until  its 
ethical  and  psychological  sanity  and  substantiality 
are  made  evident,  it  hangs  in  the  air,  the  sport  of 
[..8] 


Christ  m  Conscience 

the  winds  and  the  proper  object  of  mistrust.  No 
thoughtful  Christian  is  content  to  leave  his  expe- 
rience thus  isolated  and  unexplained.  The  man 
who  has  undergone  a  change  of  heart  is  conscious 
that  he  has  passed  through  a  unique  and  trans- 
forming experience ;  he  is  also  persuaded  that  this 
experience  is  profoundly  real  and  normal,  and  ac- 
cordant with  the  deepest  laws  of  his  moral  and 
rational  nature. 

Undoubtedly  there  is  an  element  in  Christian 
experience  which  is  not  felt  in  the  ordinary  proc- 
esses of  moral  life  —  a  sense  of  divine  support,  of 
spiritual  communion,  which  lifts  the  soul  into  a 
purer  atmosphere.  It  is  difficult  to  overestimate 
the  reality  and  importance  of  this  difference  be- 
tween the  merely  moral  life  and  the  regenerate  life. 
Conversion  raises  the  whole  content  and  detail  of 
life  into  spiritual  and  personal  relations  with  God. 
Obedience  to  duty  becomes  obedience  to  God; 
the  behests  of  conscience  become  the  promptings 
of  Christ.  And  yet  the  difference,  great  as  it  is, 
is  largely  one  of  recognition — a  recognition  that 
transforms  dreary  obedience  into  personal  devotion. 
All  earnest  and  unselfish  obedience  of  conscience 
is  obedience  to  the  indwelHng  Christ.  But  it  is 
only  when  this  fact  emerges  in  consciousness  that 
the  soul  kindles.  It  may  be  confidently  affirmed, 
out  of  general  human  experience,  that  no  one 
accepts  and  devotes  himself  to  a  great  and  noble 
duty  without  feeling  a  sense  of  personal  associa- 
[119] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

tion,  as  if  he  were  doing  the  will  of  a  supreme 
person  in  closest  relation  with  himself.  He  be- 
Feiiowship  comes  aware  that  he  is  identifying  him- 
th'rough**  self  with  some  one  **  closer  than  breath- 
^"*^  ing,"  with  whom  he  thus  enters  into  a 

deep  and  uplifting  alliance  that  stirs  his  soul  to  its 
noblest  exercise.  This  may  be  scouted  as  mysti- 
cal, but  it  is  the  secret  of  the  absorbing  appeal  and 
the  ennobling  effect  of  duty.  This  sense  of  compan- 
ionship with  the  Supreme  Self  makes  the  soul 
fearless  and  joyful  in  the  midst  of  sacrifice  and 
sorrow,  in  the  service  of  the  higher  conscience. 
What  is  conversion  but  this  sense  of  fellowship 
with  God  through  duty  lifted  into  the  conscious 
control  of  life? 


Ill 


Those   who   would   guard   the   sacredness   and 

autonomy  of  individuality  here  interpose  the  perti- 

,     .       nent  objection  to  which  we  have  already 

An  Objection  ''  ^ 

andiuAn-       referred:^    "Is  not  this  immanence  of 

swer 

God  in  Christ  destructive  of  personal 
integrity?  Does  it  not  disrupt  my  own  personal 
character  and  freedom  if  Christ  is  in  me,  as  my  very 
virtue,  my  better  self,  my  guide,  my  conscience? 
Did  not  Paul  dishonor  his  own  selfhood  when  he 
said :  '  It  is  no  longer  I  that  live,  but  Christ  liveth 

*  Vide,  p.  III. 

[.20] 


Christ  in  Conscience 

in  me '  ?  "  Were  it  other  than  an  absolutely  dis- 
interested guidance  and  an  absolutely  free  and 
rational  following,  it  would  certainly  annul  human 
personality  to  be  thus  inhabited  and  animated  by 
divine  personality.  But  the  fact,  as  reported  in 
consciousness,  is  that  in  this  relationship,  intimate 
and  determinative  as  it  is,  there  is  not  the  slightest 
infringement  of  human  freedom  and  personality, 
but  on  the  contrary,  a  conscious  development  and 
fulfilment  of  personal  freedom  and  power;  so  that 
the  Paul  for  whom  it  was  Christ  to  live  was  the 
Paul  whose  own  personality  thus  became  freest, 
most  intense,  and  most  replete.  It  is  only  the 
influence  of  abnormal  personality  that  is  coercive 
and  repressive.  Live  with  a  thoroughly  good 
person  in  spiritual  intimacy  and  your  soul  be- 
comes saturated  with  him ;  he  is  in  you,  his  spirit 
atmospheres  yours  and  instils  itself  into  your 
thought  and  conduct.  Yet,  if  his  personality  is 
sufficiently  pure  and  high,  there  is  never  for  an 
instant  a  violation  of  your  personality.  On  the 
contrary,  you  are  conscious  of  being  your  "  best 
self"  under  his  influence.  It  is  thus  with  the  in- 
dwelling of  God  in  Christ  with  us.  Only  because 
he  is  within  us  are  we  persons  at  all.  And  the 
more  fully  his  presence  is  recognized  and  honored, 
the  more  completely  do  we  come  to  ourselves,  the 
more  fully  and  freely  do  we  realize  our  own  per- 
sonality. The  Christ  of  conscience  is  the  germ  of 
spiritual  selfhood  within  us. 

[,2.] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 


IV 

The  failure  to  recognize  Christ  in  conscience  has 
led  to  a  serious  misrepresentation  of  the  gospel. 
Rejection  There  is  much  said  in  evangelistic 
Rejection  of  preaching  about  rejecting  Christ,  which 
chnst  interprets    the  rejection   simply  as  that 

of  the  historical,  or,  more  properly,  the  ecclesi- 
astical Christ,  and  entirely  ignores  the  rejec- 
tion of  the  Christ  in  conscience,  —  the  Christ 
who  stands  veiled  but  central  within  every  duty 
and  every  opportunity  for  service.  Not  that  the 
acceptance  or  rejection  of  the  Christ  of  the 
Gospels  is  not  of  supreme  importance,  but  a 
great  deal  more  is  involved  in  it  than  a  single 
apprehension  or  a  momentary  choice.  The 
subordination  of  the  moral  to  the  mechanical 
Christ,  of  the  ethical  to  the  external,  results  in 
a  travesty  of  the  real  Christ,  who  cares  not 
for  the  "Lord,"  "Lord,"  of  him  who  does  not 
his  will. 

It  is  not  enough  that  Jesus  taught  morality.  If 
that  were  all  it  would  leave  duty  orphaned  and 
unexplained.  What  we  need  to  know  is  that  right 
is  not  a  mere  human  deposit,  a  product  of  human 
creation,  however  high  and  worthy,  nor  yet  a 
mere  external  will-product  of  God  imposed  upon 
humanity,  but  that  it  is  of  the  very  being  and 
essence  of  God,  as  much  a  part  of  his  nature  as  of 
ours,  —  the  soul  of  personality,  human  and  divine, 
[  122] 


Christ  hi  Conscience 

and  therefore  the  very  kernel  of  the  eternal  reve- 
lation that  culminated  in  Jesus  Christ.  And  that 
we  can  know  only  as  Christ  is  recognized  in  con- 
science as  well  as  in  history,  in  character  as  well 
as  in  creed. 


[123] 


XVI 

CHRIST  REGENERATING 

Eternal  Love  has  more  than  one  regenerative 
process,  more  than  one  path  by  which  he  leads 
Regeneration  ^^^  O"*  ^^  darkncss  into  light,  morc 
and  Life         ^j^^^^  ^^^  ^^y  ^f  re-creating   the   soul. 

His  means  are  multiform  and  his  messengers 
many.  Too  long  the  Church  has  been  blind  to 
the  regenerative  agencies  which  lie  at  the  very 
heart  of  life  itself.  Nature,  friendship,  home, 
thought,  labor,  love  are  channels  through  which 
the  divine  life  flows  into  the  human.  The  means 
and  messengers  of  the  soul's  awaking  —  who  can 
circumscribe  them? 


When  the  heavenly  Beatrice  saluted  Dante,  the 

soul  of  the  poet  uprose  into  a  new  world.     "And 

passing  through  a  street  she  turned  her 

through  Hu-    eyes  thither  where  I  stood  abashed :  and 

by  her  unspeakable  courtesy,  which  is 

now  garnered  in  the  Great  Cycle,  she  saluted  me 

with  so  virtuous  a  bearing  that  I  seemed  then  and 

there  to  behold  the  very  limits  of  blessedness."  ^ 

^  Vi'/a  Nuova. 

[124] 


Christ  Regenerating 

This  hour  of  "  her  most  sweet  salutation  "  was  the 
hour  of  the  immortal  poet's  entrance  into  the  vita 
nuova.  To  explain  such  an  experience  as  only 
the  vibration  of  the  chord  of  youthful  sentiment 
is  to  reduce  gold  to  dross.  That  outshining  of 
purity  and  beauty  made  of  Dante  another  man. 
In  that  hour  he  was  created  a  poet.  God  took 
him  into  fellowship  with  himself.  "Every  one 
that  loveth  is  begotten  of  God,  and  knoweth 
God."  Human  love  that  is  deep  and  pure  and 
sacrificial  is  of  the  very  quality  and  essence  of  the 
new  Hfe,  "  the  eternal  life,  which  was  with  the 
Father,  and  was  manifested  unto  us." 

And  if  love  has  power  to  awaken  the  soul,  so 
also  has  truth.  If  there  was  ever  an  awakened  soul 
outside  of  Christianity,  surely  it  was 
that  of  Plato,  **  the  father  of  theology,"  through 
as  Professor  Edward  Caird  calls  him. 
"  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  He  who 
lifted  so  many  into  the  realm  of  the  good,  the  true, 
and  the  beautiful, — was  not  he  born  from  above? 
The  Spirit,  blowing  where  it  listeth,  which  stirred 
John  to  lofty  contemplation  and  noble  expression, 
must  have  been  the  same  which  moved  Plato. 
Find  a  man  in  any  age  who  thinks  deeply  and 
loves  the  truth  devoutly,  and  you  have  found  a 
man  who  is  born,  not  of  the  flesh  but  of  the  Spirit, 
whose  life  is  lifted  above  the  lust  of  the  eyes  and 
the  pride  of  life  into  the  realm  where  he  thinks 
God's  thoughts  after  him. 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

And  if  love  and  thought  afford  to  God  awaken- 
ing access  to  the  soul,  so  also  does  nature.     Not 
only  are  there  flashes  from  her  beauty 

Regeneration  ,  .    - 

through  which    move    the    soul   to    momentary 

Beauty 

communion  with  the  All-Beautiful,  but 
here  and  there  is  one  who  lives  in  constant  exalta- 
tion of  spirit  through  communion  with  her,  whose 
"days  are  bound  each  to  each  by  natural  piety." 
What  shall  we  say  of  the  nature  poets,  whose  souls 
have  fed  upon  dawns  and  sunsets,  hues  of  flowers 
and  beams  of  stars?  Ignorantly  or  consciously, 
they  worship  the  Soul  of  all  beauty.  If  they  refuse 
whatever  of  lower  suggestion  they  find  in  nature, 
and  are  true  to  the  highest  and  finest,  are  they  not 
led  by  the  Spirit?  What  of  Wordsworth,  the  high 
priest  of  nature,  finding  God  in  "  the  light  of  set- 
ting suns,"  and  the  law  of  duty  in  the  march  of  the 
stars?  What  of  Emerson,  living  in  Puritan  New 
England  like  a  Greek  philosopher  or  a  Hindu  sage, 
oblivious  of  Sabbath  bell  and  Christian  creed,  yet 
in  blissful  comradeship  with  nature  and  in  holy 
converse  with  the  Over-Soul? 

Are  not  all  these  pure  and  high-hearted  lovers, 
thinkers,  poets,  sons  of  God,  children  of  the  Spirit? 
Are  not  all  the  lowly,  love-lit  souls,  in  the  narrow 
furrow  of  every-day  duty,  —  in  the  home,  the  field, 
the  shop,  —  some  of  them  never  having  heard  of 
the  grace  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  some  having 
heard  but  not  consciously  accepted,  who  lift  their 
eyes  to  the  hills  and  walk  steadily  and  uprightly 

[,26] 


Christ  Regenerating 

their  humble  way,  —  are  they  not  all  God's  own, 
ruled  by  his  laws,  renewed  by  his  Spirit? 


II 

But  what,  then,  of  the  relation  of  these  regener- 
ate ones  to  Christ?  Can  they  be  of  the  Spirit 
and  not  of  Christ?     Have  they  no  vital 

Yet  no  Regen- 

touch  with  Him  in  whom  alone  eternal  eration  with- 
out Chnst 
life  is  revealed,  and  through  whom  the 

Spirit  works?     There  can  be  but  one  conclusion. 

In  some  way,  and  in  some  degree,  all  who  walk 

by  the  Spirit,  in  any  age  or  land,  know  the  Christ, 

—  not  in  the  flesh  but  in  the  spirit,  not  all  of  them 

in  his  historic  embodiment,  but  all  in  his  eternal 

personality.     Because  we  of  the  Christian  era  and 

the  Christian  area  have  seen  Jesus  the  Christ  we 

have  believed;    blessed    are   they  that    have   not 

seen  and  yet  have  believed.     And  if  some  who 

have    the   written    record   of  Jesus    and    yet   fail 

to   identify   him   with   the   eternal  Logos    in   the 

Living  Christ,  are  true  to  the  indwelling  Christ,  we 

may  wonder  that  the  great  light  blinds  their  eyes, 

but  we  may  not  exclude  them  from  the  number 

of  those  who,  being  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  are 

thereby  sons  of  God.     Call  these  lives  of  "  outside 

saints  "  incomplete  acceptances,  if  you  will,  partial 

regenerations ;   nevertheless  they  are  real. 

Do  we  then  make  Jesus  of  none  effect?     Rather 

would  we  seek  to  understand  and  exalt  him.     Not 

[127] 


Christ  and  tlie  Eternal  Order 

otherwise  can  he  be  understood  and  exalted 
than  as  the  full  shining  of  an  earlier  and  eternal 
Jesus  under-  ^ight.  The  prologue  of  the  Fourth 
?h°e°Eferaii^^  Gospel  IS  the  inevitable  outcome  of  clear 
^^°*  and  comprehensive  thinking  upon  Jesus 

Christ.  Athanasius  grappled  with  the  same  prob- 
lem, and  reached  practically  the  same  conclusion. 
So  has  the  great  body  of  devout  and  thoughtful 
minds  in  every  Christian  age.  Given  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  in  the  clear  and  simple  outlines  of  the 
Synoptic  narratives,  and  steadily  and  surely  re- 
flection conducts  the  mind  back  to  the  Eternal 
Word.  Jesus  interprets  the  Word,  and  in  turn  the 
Word  interprets  him.  Since,  then,  the  eternal 
revelation  precedes  and  exceeds  the  bounds  of 
historical  revelation,  all  who  have  been  and  are 
true  to  the  wider  and  fainter  revelation  are  one 
with  those  who  are  true  to  the  closer  and  clearer 
revelation.  For  the  hardness  of  our  hearts  mutual 
recognition  is  not  always  immediate,  but  when 
shibboleths  cease  and  veils  are  torn  away,  it  will 
be  seen  that  all  disciples  of  the  Word,  all  children 
of  the  Spirit,  are  one. 

Ill 

Inconsistency  and  confusion  have  characterized 
Christian  thought  concerning  the  relation  of  Christ 
and  the  Holy  Spirit.  Theology  has  never  given 
to  this  relationship  as  earnest  thought  as  to  the 
relationship  of  the  Father  and  the  Son.  In  order 
[128] 


Christ  Regenerating 

to  account  for  the  righteousness  and  faith  found  in 
humanity,  especially  in  the  Hebrew  race,  before 
the  Incarnation,  it  has  been  assumed 
that  the  Spirit,  independently  of  the  spfri?niver 
Son,  was  present  in  the  world  before  SS^the  Ete?" 
Jesus  came.  But,  besides  involving  a  se- 
rious contradiction  of  the  Divine  Unity,  this  theory 
is  in  every  way  unsatisfying.  To  detach  the  Spirit 
from  the  Christ  is  like  separating  heat  from  light. 
It  is  like  severing  will  from  reason.  Neither  can 
be  rightly  conceived  as  acting  without  the  other. 
Nor  can  their  joint  activity  occur  save  through  the 
Father,  the  primary  power  in  all  spiritual  ener- 
gizing.^ So  close  is  the  relation  between  Christ 
and  the  Spirit  in  the  illumination  of  the  human 
soul  that  St  Paul  (2  Cor.  3:  17)  momentarily  iden- 
tifies them.  Whenever  the  veil  is  taken  away 
from  human  hearts  so  that  they  see  clearly,  it 
comes,  says  Paul,  through  the  turning  of  the  heart 
to  the  Lord,  who  "  is  the  Spirit." 

If  Christ  is  essential  to  one  regeneration  he  is 
essential  to  all.     If  the  new  birth  cannot  take  place 
without  the  Spirit,  neither  can  it  without  ^he  Ever- 
the  Christ.     Jesus,  the  incarnate  Christ,  ProwftoSn 
inexpressibly  clarifies,  illumines,  objec-  JSeEtemaf^ 
tifies,  expresses  the  indwelling  Christ;   ^^"^* 
but,  after  all,  it  is  the  latter,  not  the  former,  who 
is  the  "  essential  Christ."    Wherever  and  whenever 

1  It  was  to  combat  this  separation  of  the  activity  of  the 
Word  and  the  Spirit  that  Luther  strove. 
9  [129] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

regeneration,  complete  or  partial,  has  occurred 
without  the  pale  of  historic  Christianity,  it  must 
have  been  through  the  Ever-present  Spirit  taking 
the  things  of  the  eternal  Christ  and  showing  them 
to  men.  If  one  takes  the  narrower  view  and  holds 
that  no  soul  ever  entered  into  the  spiritual  life  until 
Jesus  came,  then  Christianity  is  but  an  unaccount- 
able historical  cataclysm,  and  revelation  a  comet, 
flashing  suddenly  across  the  pathway  of  the  steadier 
stars  of  human  faith  and  duty  and  destined  to 
disappear  in  the  darkness  out  of  which  it  came. 

IV 

Upon  the  assumption  of  a  circumscribed  and 
enclosed  Christianity,  whatever  of  faith,  virtue,  love, 
TheAbsurdi-    wcrc  in  humanity  before  Christ,  or  be- 

ties  that  fol-  ,     —,.     .  _  , 

lowed  the        yond  Christ,  are    false    and    deceptive. 

Theory  that       ;L 

Christianity     1  hcy  arc  not  real  because  they  are  not 

is  confined  to 

History  regenerate,  and  do  not  spring  from  the 

life  in  Christ.^  This  inference  both  Roman  Cathol- 
icism and  Calvinism  unhesitatingly  accept  In  the 
unbaptized,  the  Roman  Church  finds  only  corrup- 
tion and  selfishness.  Calvin  stoutly  affirms  that 
"  everything  that  proceeds  from  the  corrupt 
nature  of  man  is  worthy  of  condemnation."  He 
admits,  it  is  true,  that  virtues  like  those  of  Camil- 
lus  were  **  gifts  of  God,"  and  that  there  are  "  most 
excellent  gifts  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  which  for  the 
common  benefit  of  mankind  he  dispenses  to  whom- 
*  Vitff,  p.  109. 

[•30] 


Christ  Regenerating 

soever  he  pleases,"  but  even  these  natural  gifts 
"  have  been  corrupted,  not  that  they  can  be  defiled 
in  themselves  as  proceeding  from  God,  but  because 
they  have  ceased  to  be  pure  to  polluted  man,  so 
that  he  can  obtain  no  praise  from  them."^ 

To  dissever  thus  sharply  and  completely  the 
"  natural  man "  from  the  "  spiritual  man "  may 
seem  to  have  a  certain  warrant  in  parts  of  Paul's 
Epistle  to  the  Romans,  but  it  does  not  agree  with 
his  speech  on  Mars  Hill,  or  with  his  doctrine  as  a 
whole.  Nor  does  it  reflect  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 
The  early  Church  did  not  recognize  this  abso- 
lutely unrelated  nature  of  regeneration.  Cornelius' 
prayer  and  alms  could  never  have  come  up  to  God 
acceptably  if  they  had  arisen  from  a  heart  wholly 
corrupt  and  evil.  Bound  up  with  a  narrow  and  now 
exploded  form  of  the  doctrine  of  the  fall  of  man, 
this  distorted  view  of  human  nature,  as  utterly  per- 
verted and  alienated  from  God,  has  been  rejected 
by  modern  thought  as  unreal  and  provincial. 
With  the  larger  horizons  opened  by  modern  sci- 
ence and  history,  it  is  absolutely  incompatible. 
The  question  now  becomes:  Shall  Humanism  or 
theology  go  completely  over  to  the  Calvinism? 
opposite  extreme,  and  adopting  the  creed  of 
humanism,  declare  human  nature,  in  and  of  itself, 
altogether  noble  and  perfect,  barring  the  neces- 
sities of  incomplete  development?  Or,  shall  the- 
ology cling  to  the  real  truth  which  underlies 
^  Institutes^  Book  I,  chapter  3. 

[131] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

Calvinism,  namely,  the  utter  worthlessness  and 
sinfulness  of  humanity  without  God,  and  correct 
its  false  premise  by  asserting  that,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  humanity  never  has  been  entirely  without  God, 
but  that  in  every  true  purpose  and  holy  desire  and 
noble  deed  the  Eternal  Word  and  the  Eternal  Spirit 
have  been  acting  upon  and  with  the  human  spirit  ? 

Regeneration  thus  becomes  a  divine  process  as 
ancient  and  as  varied  as  humanity,  yet  coming  to 
its  full  effect  only  in  Christianity ;  the  Holy  Spirit, 
no  late-sent  visitant  from  heaven  descending  to 
earth  at  Pentecost,  nor  yet  a  divine  influence  re- 
stricted to  one  people  alone,  but  the  Father's 
gracious  Paraclete,  sent  to  help  his  children  from 
the  beginning;  and  the  Christ,  through  whom  the 
Spirit  operates,  not  merely  the  God-man  coming 
in  the  flesh  in  the  fulness  of  time,  but  also  the 
ever-present  Word,  the  Light  that  lighteth  every 
man  coming  into  the  world. 


[  132] 


XVII 

CHRIST   ATONING 

It  has  been  a  common  practise  in  systematic 
theology  to  distinguish  so  sharply  as  almost  to 
separate  the  person  of  Christ  from  the  incarnation 


work  of  Christ.     Incarnation  and  atone-  ment  msep- 


and  Atone- 
ment i 
arable 


ment  have  been  treated  as  if  they  were 
as  distinct  as  multiplication  and  division.  Incarna- 
tion has  been  regarded  wholly  as  a  state ;  atone- 
ment as  a  deed.  Thus,  Professor  Denney  in  his 
book,  The  Death  of  Chfist^  accentuates  the  posi- 
tion of  many  earlier  writers  as  follows :  "  Christ 
not  only  was  something  in  the  world,  he  did  some- 
thing. He  did  something  that  made  an  infinite 
difference,  and  that  puts  us  under  an  infinite  obli- 
gation. He  bore  our  sins."  Most  certainly  he  did 
something;  but  was  the  sum  of  his  doing  confined 
to  the  sacrifice  of  the  cross?  Was  not  all  the 
rest,  —  self-conquest,  teaching,  ministry,  —  doing 
as  well  as  being,  sacrifice  as  well  as  service? 
Could  he  have  been  something  without  doing 
something,  or  done  something  without  being  some- 
thing? It  is  a  limited  view  which  sets  the  atone- 
ment over  against  the  incarnation,  and  argues  for 


Christ  and  tJu  Eternal  Order 

one  or  the  other  as  central.  They  are  hemispheres 
cff  one  full-rounded  revelation,  and  the  equator 
which  separates  them  is,  at  best,  but  an  imaginary 
line. 

I 

The  issue  between  the  defenders  of  the  incarna- 
tion and  of  the  atonement  is  a  superficial  one,  and 
disappears  as  soon  as  the  personality  of  Christ  is 
placed  in  the  foreground.  Too  long  the  person  of 
Christ  has  been  obscured.  In  the  doctrine  of  the 
incarnation,  the  nature  of  Christ  has  been  empha- 
sized at  the  expense  of  his  person,  and  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  atonement,  the  act  at  the  expense 
of  the  person  performing  the  act.  Modern  the- 
ology is  turning  from  the  vain  endeavor  to  under- 
An  atoning  Stand  the  nature  of  Christ  to  the  more 
rh^°M"**^"  inspiring  contemplation  of  his  person, 
atoning  Death  ^j^^  time  has  comc  to  interpret  the 
atonement,  also,  more  in  the  terms  of  personality 
and  less  in  those  of  accomplishment,  to  exalt 
the  dying  Christ  rather  than  the  death  of  Christ, 
to  contemplate  the  atoning  Christ  rather  than  to 
speculate  concerning  the  nature  of  the  atonement 
wrought  by  him. 

The  uplifting  of  the  personality  of  Christ  in 
atonement  is  a  return  to  the  New  Testament  em- 
phasis. It  is  upon  him  that  the  ictus  there  falls, 
rather  than  upon  his  work.  '*  And  I,  if  I  be  lifted 
up  from  the  earth,"  "  And  ye  know  that  he  was 

[■34] 


Christ  Atoning 

manifested  to  take  away  sins,"  —  this  is  the  Johan- 
nine  emphasis.  As  High  Priest,  rather  than  as 
sacrifice,  did  Christ  appeal  to  the  author  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  "  Jesus  Christ,  and  him 
crucified,"  was  Paul's  message.  "  Who  his  own 
self  bare  our  sins  in  his  body  upon  the  tree,"  was 
the  adoring  exaltation  of  the  person  of  Christ  by 
the  author  of  First  Peter.  The  death  of  Christ 
and  the  cross  of  Christ  are  often  alluded  to  in  the 
New  Testament,  but  always  in  closest  association 
with  Christ  himself,  never  in  the  detached  and 
impersonal  manner  of  our  systematic  theology,  as 
if  the  death,  the  sacrifice,  possessed  virtue  in  itself 
apart  from  him  who  died. 

The  misdirection  of  emphasis  upon  the  deed 
rather  than  the  doer,  the  work  rather  than  the  per- 
son of  Christ,  has  lent  to  the  atonement  an  almost 
magical  efficacy  in  the  minds  of  many.  If,  instead 
of  exalting  him,  attention  is  directed  mainly  to 
the  debt  he  is  paying,  or  the  propitiation  he  is 
making,  or  the  death  he  is  dying,  until  he  himself 
comes  to  be  looked  upon  as  subordinate  to  the 
transaction   of  which  he  is  the  instru- 

1  '1  e    r^\       •  It.,  "^^  New 

ment,  we  lose  sight  of  Christ  behind  a  Testament 

,  .  T       •  •  1       •        terms,  not 

doctrine.  It  is   true,  there  is   much  in  definitionsbut 

metaphors. 

the  New  Testament  which   apparently  This  makes 

'^  ^  "^      the  terms  not 

forms  a  basis    for   the   construction   of  less  but  more 

real 

the  elaborate  theory  of  the  atonement 
which  has  been  erected,  but  only  if  the  terms  used 
are  taken  literally ;  and,  as  Coleridge  so  pertinently 
['35] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

pointed  out,  these  terms  are  metaphors,  not  defini* 
tions.  Of  this  we  may  be  sure,  for  the  reason 
that,  taken  literally,  they  are  mutually  contradic- 
tory. Christ  cannot  be  at  the  same  time  Ransom 
and  Redeemer,  Priest  and  Sacrifice,  Propitiation 
and  Advocate. 

These  ardent  New  Testament  disciples  have 
experienced  a  new  life,  a  transforming  truth,  a 
fresh  relationship  to  God  in  Christ,  which  no  term, 
no  language,  is  adequate  to  express.  Therefore 
they  seize  every  symbol  which  helps  to  convey  a 
meaning  greater  than  words  can  contain.  To  liter- 
alize  rigidly  these  words,  and  attempt  to  turn  their 
vital,  flaming  utterance  into  set  theological  phrase- 
ology is  to  withdraw  the  gaze  of  the  soul  from  the 
atoning  Christ  in  order  to  fasten  attention  upon 
a  plan,  a  method,  a  device,  for  saving  men. 

II 

It  is  only  as  we  turn  from  the  impersonal,  juridical 
view  of  the  atonement  to  the  personal  and  ethical, 
that  we  enter  into  its  deeper  and  more  searching 
reality.  So  long  as  death,  blood,  ransom,  propiti- 
ation, substitution,  taken  literally,  constitute  the 
essential  factors  of  atonement,  it  is  impossible  to 
get  at  the  heart  of  the  doctrine ;  but  the  moment 
its  ethical  and  personal  implications  are  put  for- 
ward, these  terms  become  vivid  and  luminous 
symbols,  and  the  doctrine  itself  vital  and  thrilling 
with  the  touch  of  the  personal  Christ. 

[■36] 


Christ  Atoning 

The  need  of  atonement  lies  in  the  very  nature  of 
moral  relationships,  disturbed  and  ruptured  by  sin. 
Men    are    bound    together   in    a   social  ^    .    . 

°  The  vicanous 

whole.      None    liveth    to   himself,  and  Natureofsuf- 

fenng  for  Sin 

none  dieth  to  himself.  Bitter  fruits 
must  be  shared,  evil  deeds  must  be  borne  by 
others  as  well  as  by  the  doer.  Infinite  love  cannot 
reverse  this  order.  "  All 's  love,  but  all 's  law." 
There  is  no  offhand  forgiveness  on  the  part  of 
God.  He  never  says  to  his  children,  "Oh,  well, 
never  mind."  It  only  needs  to  be  shown  that 
Christ  is  racial  in  his  relations  for  the  conclusion 
to  follow  that  he  must  needs  suffer  atoningly  for 
human  sin. 

Christ  atones  by  the  moral  victory  which  he 
achieved,  by  the  manifestation  of  the  divine  love 
which  he  made,  by  the  penitence  for  sin  which  he 
aroused.  But  this  is  not  all.  Christ  atones  by 
bearing,  and  thus  bearing  away,  human  sin. 
This  is  the  vicarious  element  in  atonement. 
But  it  is  not  substitution,  nor  equivalence,  nor 
imputation.  All  these  quantitative  and  forensic 
terms  must  be  flung  away.  They  may,  perhaps, 
have  served  a  purpose,  but  they  have  come  to 
obscure  those  deeper  ethical  values  of  the  cross 
which  set  it  at  the  very  heart  and  center  of 
Hfe. 

You  cannot  help  the  person  who  loves  you 
bearing  your  sins.  Nor  can  he  help  it,  if  he  loves 
you.     He  suffers  with  you  and  for  you  in  your  sin 

[137] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

and  its  consequences,  and  the  more  in  that  he 
does  not  sin  with  you  and  for  you.  And  this 
vicarious  suffering,  bearing  our  sins  by  sympathy, 
helps  bear  them  away,  for  it  arouses  us  to  re- 
nounce that  which  can  bring  such  pain  to  others. 
The  love  that  thus  suffers  vicariously  burns  up  the 
love  of  sin  until  it  shrivels  and  dies  in  the  holy 
flame.  Thus,  ethically,  sympathetically,  vicariously 
—  through  his  racial  relationship  —  the  Son  of  God 
bears  human  sin. 

Let   us   not    think    that    this    ethical   value   of 

the  atonement  was  wholly  unrecognized  until  the 

modern   era   in   theology.     It  was  the 

The  ethical  ^■'  ,       ,     ,'    , 

Value  of  the     frround-tonc  iu  the  doctrine,  which  hal- 

Atonement         '^ 

lowed  it  from  the  first,  though  overlaid 
with  many  false  and  discordant  notes.  Now  and 
then  one  catches  vibrations  of  this  deeper  note 
in  Anselm's  Cur  Dens  Homo.  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards sounds  it,  full  and  clear,  in  his  paper  on 
The  Satisfaction  of  Christy  in  which  he  repre- 
sents the  sympathy  of  Christ  with  God  and  with 
men  as  perfected  by  his  death.  But  only 
through  the  searching  thought  and  spiritual  in- 
sight of  such  modern  theologians  as  McLeod 
Campbell,  Maurice,  Bushnell,  Dorner,  and  Rob- 
ertson have  we  come  to  see  the  primary  ethical 
quality  of  the  doctrine.  As  Nitzsch  has  put  it, 
*'  It  is  in  the  depth  of  his  sympathy  and  in  the 
endeavor  for  the  world's  salvation  that  Christ 
bears  the  penalty  of  sin." 

[  '38  ] 


Christ  Atonino^ 


III 


We  have  been  speaking  of  the  atonement 
hitherto  as  if  it  occurred  solely  at  a  given  point 
in  time,  at  a  certain  crisis  in  human  Etemai 
history.  But  more  thorough  thinking  Atonement 
shows  that  this  cannot  be.  In  order  to  be  in  any 
sense  historical,  the  atonement  must  be  an  eternal 
process  in  the  heart  of  God.  An  eternal  atone- 
ment is  the  necessary  corollary  of  eternal  divine 
love.  A  love  that  never  suffered  for  human  sin 
before  the  crucifixion,  or  that  never  before  the 
incarnation  in  great  compassion  sought  to  win 
men  away  from  sin,  would  not  be  love.  "  The 
redemption  of  the  Christ  was  the  manifestation  of 
that  which  is  eternal  in  the  being  of  God."  ^ 

An  eternal  atonement  is  the  only  explanation  of 
a  historic  atonement.  To  hold  any  theory  which 
contains  the  implication  that  God  made  Etemai  Atone- 
up  his  mind,  at  a  certain  point  in  the  Sistoilc^^^"* 
history  of  human  sin,  to  be  atoned  by  atonement 
the  death  of  his  Son,  or  even  that  he  determined 
from  eternity  to  be  atoned  at  that  particular  time 
and  by  that  particular  event,  is  to  degrade  our 
thought  of  God.  Christ  refutes  the  notion  in  the 
parable  of  The  Husbandmen.  Many  messengers  of 
atonement  are  sent,  and  all  suffer  ill-treatment; 
the   Son   comes   only  when   the    refusal  of  other 

^  Mulford,  Republic  of  God,  p.  184. 
[139] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

endeavors  toward  reconciliation  makes  his  coming 
possible  and  needful. 

Nor  need  we  absolutely  exclude  —  although  here 
we  should  proceed  with  extreme  hesitation,  lest  we 
exercise  ourselves  in  things  too  high  for  us  —  the 
thought  to  which  theology  has  clung  so  tena- 
ciously, that  in  the  sacrifice  of  Calvary  the  heart 
of  God  was  moved  to  a  still  deeper  and  fuller  for- 
giveness of  men.  God  is  unchangeable,  yet  surely 
not  stagnant.  It  is  not  irreverent  to  conjecture 
that  the  heart  of  the  Eternal  may  have  known  a 
fresh  outflow  of  forgiving  love  to  man  in  the  sacri- 
fice of  Calvary,  as  Bushnell  suggested,  arguing 
from  the  analogy  of  the  man  who  in  sacrificing  for 
one  who  has  wronged  him  feels  a  deeper  and  more 
complete  forgiveness  toward  him. 


IV 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  neither  a  purely  historic 
Christ,  nor  a  Christ  who  was  preexistent  with  the 
Eternal  Atone- ^^^^^^  but  entirely  unknown  to  hu- 
Snlhirn'Sd  manity  before  the  incarnation,  will  suf- 
?heHl's"torfc  ^ce.  God  must  have  been  in  Christ 
Atonement  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself,  even« 
before  the  great  historic  reconciliation.  Otherwise 
it  is  impossible  to  account  for  the  sense  of  divine 
forgiveness  and  compassion  experienced  by  men 
before  Christianity,  as  reflected,  for  example,  in 
the  penitential  psalms  of  Assyrians  and  Egyptians, 
[  140] 


Christ  Atoning 

and  in  the  tender  assurances  of  divine  forgiveness 
in  the  words  of  Hebrew  prophets  and  psalmists. 

And  yet,  how  almost  universally  was  this  inner 
revelation  despised ;  how  persistently  men  pre- 
ferred darkness  rather  than  light;  how  urgent  be- 
came the  need  of  an  historic  atonement !  Eternal 
love  has  always  waited  with  the  ring  and  the  best 
robe  and  the  forgiving  embrace,  and  never  without 
cost  of  suffering  and  sacrifice ;  for  although  the 
parable  does  not  tell  us  what  the  Father  suffered  on 
the  day  the  prodigal  took  his  journey,  and  the  days 
that  followed,  we  may  read  it  between  the  lines, 
in  the  very  warmth  of  the  welcome.  But  humanity 
in  its  sin  had  rejected  the  Indwelling  Christ,  had 
forgotten  the  deserted  home  and  the  forgiving 
Father,  and  it  needed  the  suffering  Son  of  man 
and  the  uplifted  cross  to  restore  mankind  to  itself 
and  to  God.  Thus  does  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus, 
in  time,  disclose  the  heart  of  God  in  eternity  and 
reveal  the  sacrificial  nature  of  Love. 


[hi] 


XVIII 

CHRIST    RISEN 

Christian  Evidences  and  Apologetics  make  far 
more  of  the  resurrection  than  of  the  Risen  Christ ; 
The  Risen  ^^^  New  Testament  makes  far  more  of 
STrwu""'  the  Risen  Christ  than  of  the  resurrec- 
rection  ^j^j^      j|^g  difference   is   more    radical 

and  serious  than  at  first  appears.  It  amounts  to 
a  subversion  of  emphasis,  on  the  part  of  Apolo- 
getics, from  the  personal  to  the  impersonal,  from 
the  essential  to  the  incidental.  This  displacement 
of  emphasis  has  injured  Christianity  not  a  little; 
for  false  emphasis  is  first  cousin  to  false  doctrine. 


The  Risen  Christ  was  the  day-star  of  Christianity. 
It  was  he  who  reawakened  the  drooping  hearts  of 
Not  a  resur-  ^^^  disciples,  and  won  new  believers  to 
hSt*ann?$Jr.  their  ranks.  It  is  commonly  asserted 
ishabie  Person  ^j^^^  the  rcsurrcction  was  the  central 
truth  of  the  new  propaganda.  Rather  it  was  the 
Risen  Christ.^      Not  a  resurrected    body,  but  an 

^  "  The  apostolic  conception  of  the  Resurrection  is  rather 
'The  Lord  lives/  than  'The  Lord  was  raised.'"  Bishop 
Wescott,  quoted  by  Canon  Hensley  Henson  in  the  Hibbert 
Journal^  April,  1904. 

[  142  ] 


Christ  Risen 

imperishable  Person  saved  the  world.  Peter,  in 
his  Pentecostal  speech,  revealed  the  secret  of  the 
resurrection  when  he  said  of  Christ :  "  Whom  God 
raised  up,  having  loosed  the  pangs  of  death :  be- 
cause it  was  not  possible  that  he  should  be  holden 
of  it."  A  personality  too  vital  to  be  held  by  death 
—  it  was  He  whom  the  Church  adored  and  whom 
the  world  could  not  withstand. 

Here,  too,  lies  the  secret  of  Paul's  emphatic 
resurrection-teaching.  To  be  a  Living  Christ  his 
Lord  must  be  a  Risen  Christ,  —  this  he  cannot  too 
ardently  affirm.  "  If  Christ  hath  not  been  raised, 
then  is  our  preaching  vain,  your  faith  also  is  vain." 
Although  to  Paul  the  Risen  Christ  involves  the 
fact  of  a  resurrection,  it  is  not  upon  the  fact  that 
he  places  the  emphasis,  but  upon  the  person  who 
overcame  death  and  led  captivity  captive.  It  is  he 
without  whom  Christianity  is  disabled, 
and  not  the  mere  external  fact  of  the  transcends 

.        .  .  the  Event 

resurrection,  much  less  the  manner, 
evidences  and  accessories  of  resurrection,  upon 
which  theology  has  been  far  too  prone  to  dwell.^ 
True,  each  of  the  Gospels  presents  a  circumstantial 
account  of  the  events  attending  the  resurrection, 
but  it  is  a  narrative  of  experiences  rather  than  a 
presentation  of  evidence.  For  that  very  reason  it 
is,  in  some  respects,  all  the  better  evidence.  The 
vivid  human  touches  that  make  up  the  account 
are  the  quickened  and  memorable  impressions  that 
^  See  Harnack's  History  of  Dogma^  Vol.  I,  p.  85. 
[M3] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

attend  a  great  experience  rather  than  intentionally 
gathered  testimonies.  The  disciples  were  sure  of 
him  risen.  That  was  enough.  He  still  lived  —  it 
was  this  that  set  their  hearts  throbbing,  and  sent 
them  forth  with  the  gospel  message.  The  fact 
that  each  saw  him  risen  but  none  saw  him  rise, 
itself  indicates  that  the  emphasis  belongs  upon  the 
person  rather  than  upon  the  miracle  involved.  It 
is  possible  to  believe  in  the  actual  resurrection  of 
Jesus  (as,  for  example,  with  such  a  theory  as  that 
of  Stapfer  ^)  without  assuming  the  literal  resump- 
tion by  Christ  of  the  crucified  body,  although  all 
such  theories  create  as  many  difficulties  as  they 
remove.  The  out-and-out  miracle  is  as  reasonable 
a  supposition  as  any.  But,  miracle  or  no  miracle, 
the  emphasis  does  not  belong  there,  but  upon 
the  Christ,  who  so  stamped  the  reality  of  his  risen 
personality  upon  the  mind  of  men  that  it  never 
has  been,  and  apparently  never  will  be,  effaced. 
The  Christ  survives  all  theories  of  the  resurrection. 
He  is  risen  indeed ! 

II 

Christ  himself  has  been  too  long  obscured  by 
his  miracles,  particularly  by  that  of  the  resurrection. 

1  "  He  arose  on  the  third  day,  but  it  was  not  the  flesh 
that  formerly  lived  that  returned  to  life;  it  was  a  spiritual 
and  celestial  body  coming  forth  from  the  material  and  earthly 
body  which  died  on  the  cross."  See  American  Jourttal  of 
Theology^  July,  1900. 

[  144] 


Christ  Rise7i 

Apologetics  has  raised  so  great  a  dust  about  this 
event  that  it  is  difficult  for  the  face  of  the  risen 
Sun  of  Righteousness  to  shine  through.  "  The 
apologist  who  seeks  to  refute  skepticism  by  demon- 
strating the  resurrection  as  the  *  most  certain  of  all 
historical  events,'  and  arguing  back  to  the  divinity 
of  the  mission  and  character  of  Jesus,  inverts  the 
method  in  which  revelation  was  historic- 

11  •  A  Ml  111  Christianity 

ally  given.  ...  A  man  will  not  be  able  to  does  not  rest 

on  a  Mirac- 

accept  this  most  mysterious  of  all  super-  uious  occur- 
natural  manifestations,  if  he  has  not  first 
been  led  up,  as  the  disciples  were,  to  find  the 
supernatural  in  the  life  and  person  of  Jesus;  to  find 
it,  that  is,  in  a  form  in  which  it  can  be  verified  by 
human  experience."  ^  To  rest  the  whole  weight  of 
Christianity  upon  the  provableness  of  a  single 
historical  event,  to  make  the  resurrection  the  artic- 
tilus  stantis  aiit  cade?itis  eccksiae^  is  to  entrust  it 
to  a  support  too  slender  to  bear  the  strain.  The 
evidence  for  the  reality  of  the  Person,  Jesus  Christ, 
is  absolute  and  conclusive;  the  evidence  for  the 
external  fact  of  his  resurrection  is  necessarily 
much  less  conclusive.  It  is  sufficient  only  when 
kept  in  immediate  connection  with  his  unique 
character  and  personality. 

Evidence  is  inevitably  influenced  by  personality. 
If  the  same  amount  of  evidence  were  brought  for- 
ward to  prove  the  resurrection  from  the  dead  of 

^  Forrest,  The  Christ  of  History  and  of  Experience^ 
p.  157,  3d  ed. 

10  [  145  ] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

Theudas,  or  Simon  the  Sorcerer,  as  of  Jesus  Chrtst, 
who  of  us  would  accept  it?  It  makes  all  the  dif- 
ference in  the  world  of  what  sort  of  a  person  a 
given  act  is  alleged.  It  would  take  a  prodigious 
deal  of  evidence  to  convince  us  that  certain  per- 
sons whom  we  know  had  done  a  great  deed  of 
self-sacrifice ;  of  others  we  would  believe  it  upon 
the  merest  hearsay.^  If  you  were  informed  that 
Thomas  Edison  had  invented  a  success- 
or evidence      ful  fiyinc:  machine  you  would  be  pre- 

affectedby  ,  ,      ,.  .       ,  .-  ,, 

the  person  in-  pared  to  behcvc  it,  but  if  you  were  told 
that  your  neighbor's  boy,  who  does  not 
know  enough  to  make  a  kite,  had  done  so,  you 
would  ask  to  see  the  machine  first.  It  is  unscien- 
tific to  demand  the  same  degree  of  proof  for  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  as  would  be  required 
for  that  of  John  Smith  or  Tom  Jones.  If  you  ask 
a  man  to  believe  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  who 
does  not  first  believe  in  Jesus,  you  ask  an  unrea- 
sonable thing.  Nor  would  it  greatly  concern  us  if 
it  were  proved  that  John  Smith  did  rise  from  the 
dead  —  except  as  a  remarkable  phenomenon.  But 
if  Jesus  rose,  each  of  us  is  intimately  concerned, 
because  of  that  personality  which  makes  him  racial 
and  representative  and  by  virtue  of  which  we  may 
say,  with  St  Paul,  If  He  rose  I  shall  rise  also. 

*  See  article  by  Canon  Henson  in  the  Hibbert  Journal^ 
April,  1904. 


[.46] 


Christ  Risen 


III 

The  return  of  emphasis  from  the  mere  external 
fact  of  the  resurrection  to  the  Risen  Christ  is  one 
of  the    marked    tendencies  of  contem-  p„„v,„„.,  ,.„ 

Kmpnasis  is 

porary  Christianity.  The  Ritschhan  JSiTiLen*" 
school  has  done  much  to  promote  this  ^^"^^ 
change.  Placing  Christ  at  the  helm  of  history, 
Ritschlianism  holds  that  the  resurrection  of  Christ 
**  is  the  completion  of  the  revelation  made  in  him, 
which  not  only  absolutely  corresponds  with,  but 
necessarily  results  from,  the  worth  of  his  Person."  ^ 
But  this  subordination  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ 
to  his  Person  has  become  much  wider  and  more 
pervasive  than  the  tenets  of  any  one  school.  "  A 
clear  distinction  has  been  discerned,"  says  Dr. 
James  M.  Whiton,  "  between  the  real  resurrection 
of  Jesus  —  his  rising  from  the  mortal  state  into 
the  immortal  —  and  his  phenomenal  resurrection 
in  the  visible  world.  So  conservatively  orthodox  a 
writer  as  Dr.  G.  D.  Boardman  goes  so  far  as  to 
say:  *  After  all,  the  real  question  is  not,  Did 
Christ's  body  rise?  That  is  but  a  subordinate, 
incidental  issue.'  The  real  question,  as  Dr.  Board- 
man  admits,  is,  *  Whether  Christ  himself  is  risen 
and  is  alive  to-day.' "  ^  As  the  Church  at  large 
gradually  comes  back  to  this  earlier  and  truer 
perspective,  the   physical  resurrection   will  come 

^  The  Ritschlian  Theology^  Garvie,  p.  224. 

*  Miracles  and  Supernatural  Religion^  p.  115. 

[147] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

more  and  more  universally  to  be  regarded  as  of 
minor  moment  in  comparison  with  the  Risen  Christ, 
who  proves  the  resurrection  far  more  than  the 
resurrection  proves  him. 

IV 

The  Risen  Christ  convinced  the  disciples  of  his 
identity.  Does  he  convince  us?  Is  he  "  natural," 
—  as  depicted  in  the  narratives,  —  one  with  the 
Christ  of  Galilee  and  of  the  upper  chamber?  The 
Risen  Christ  portrayed  in  the  Gospels  is  the  same 
Jesus,  and  yet  not  wholly  the  same.  Had  he  been 
too  much  shadow,  or  too  much  substance,  the 
disciples  would  have  doubted,  and  so  would  we. 
But,  not  so.     He  is  so  much  the  same 

The  Rcsur-  ,  t  •  i  /■  ,  i 

rectiononeof  as   to    be   himsclf,  and   yet  too    much 

the  three  ,  ,  '  ,       ,  , 

Births  of  chaugcd  not  to  have  passed  through 
death.  The  transition  is  not  a  mere  re- 
turn to  previous  limiting  conditions.  The  old 
limitations  are  gone.  He  comes  and  goes  at  will, 
with  the  freedom  of  the  Spirit.  Nor  is  the  Risen 
Christ  in  the  same  stage  of  self-development. 
"  According  to  the  New  Testament,"  says  Dorner, 
**  the  resurrection  is  not  merely  Christ's  justification 
and  his  vindication,  .  .  .  but  also  an  epoch  of  de- 
velopment in  his  person."  ^  It  is  a  bold  conception, 
but  not  without  foundation.  We  instinctively  feel 
that  the  Risen  Christ  of  the  Gospels,  while  he  is  at 
one  with  the  pre-resurrection  Christ,  has  passed  on 
*  System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  Vol.  IV,  p.  134. 

[.48] 


Christ  Risen 

into  a  wider  amplitude  of  personality  and  a  wider 
scope  of  activity.  The  ancient  Church  spoke  of 
the  resurrection  as  one  of  the  three  births  of 
Christ.^  As  such,  the  resurrection  introduces  Christ 
to  an  ampler  sphere  of  being.  He  becomes  a 
still  richer  and  more  productive  personality.  His 
character  is  just  as  human  and  winsome,  his  con- 
tact just  as  intimate  and  loving  as  of  old,  and  yet 
there  is  a  closer  converse  with  the  spiritual,  a  richer 
self-realization,  purities,  potencies,  pleromas  that 
awaken  fresh  love  and  reverence.  His  salutation, 
as  he  enters  the  room,  breathes  a  vital  serenity,  as 
of  another  realm,  and  his  presence  stirs 
a  still  deeper  faith.    To  fix  firmly  in  the  sus  cor- 

poreity 

minds  of  the  disciples  the  identity  of 
this  new  selfhood  with  that  of  the  Jesus  with  whom 
they  were  so  familiar,  was  the  constant  endeavor 
of  the  Risen  Christ.  If  he  appears  to  lay  undue 
stress  upon  his  physical  body,  his  hands,  his  feet, 
his  side,  it  is  that  he  may  convince  the  disciples  of 
his  identity,  not  of  his  corporeity.  His  one  aim  is 
to  assure  them  that  this  is  his  very  self. 

Thus  does  the  Risen  Christ  accentuate  and  am- 
plify the  Christ  personality.     The  resurrection  as 
an  external  event  is  absorbed  and  lost  Resurrection 
sight  of  in  the  resurrection  as  a  stage,  a  prV|?eLso^* 
waymark  in  the  progress  of  this  expand-  ^*'"^* 
ing  Spirit,  "  machinery  just  lent,  to  give  the  soul 

1  Dorner,  System  of  Christian  Doctritie^  Vol.  IV,  p.  134, 
note.    See  Col.  1:18. 

[■49] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

its  bent."  In  the  light  of  the  Risen  Christ  it  is 
easy  to  understand  those  words  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  so  enigmatical  at  the  time  they  were 
spoken:  "I  am  the  resurrection,  and  the  life." 
Here  is  the  utterance  of  a  consciousness  so  vital, 
so  puissant,  so  triumphant,  that  it  scorns  death 
and  sees  resurrection  only  as  a  phase,  a  process  in 
its  own  invincible,  outflowing  life.  Just  as  surely 
as  this  Soul,  this  Consciousness,  this  Person  whom 
we  call  Jesus  Christ,  is  understood  in  his  real 
strength  and  supremacy,  just  so  surely  the  con- 
viction follows  that  he  could  not  be  holdcn  of 
death,  but  that  the  crucified  Christ  must  needs 
become  the  Risen  Christ. 


[ISO] 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY    i 

OF 


XIX 

CHRIST  RETURNING 

As  the  mind  of  the  Church  grows  more  sensitive 
and  discerning  in  its  understanding  of  Jesus,  it 
becomes  increasingly  conscious  of  a  dis-  ^j^^  discord- 
cordant  note,  an  inherent  self-contra-  theG^s^pJS 
diction,  in  the  Gospel  representation  of  symphony 
him.  For  many  years  past  this  disharmony  has 
been  thought  to  lie  in  an  irreconcilable  discrepancy 
between  the  Synoptics  and  the  Fourth  Gospel. 
But  a  more  mature  study  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
and  a  more  thoughtful  comparison  of  it  with  the 
Synoptics  shows  that  this  diagnosis  has  been  too 
hasty.  The  point  at  which  the  real  divergence 
occurs,  where  the  picture  of  our  Lord  fails  to  be 
true  to  itself,  is  that  at  which  Jesus  is  made  to 
reverse  and  confute  all  his  previous  teaching  con- 
cerning himself  and  his  kingdom  and,  exchanging 
the  spiritual  for  the  material,  the  eternal  for  the 
eschatological,  to  descend  to  the  Jewish  level  of 
thought  and  expression,  and  enwrap  himself  in  the 
tinsel  trappings  of  his  time  and  people.  I  refer  to 
the  discourse  known  as  "  The  Last  Things."  ^  It  is 
1  Matt.  24  and  25  ;  Mark  13. 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

safe  to  say  that  for  the  discerning  and  devout  dis- 
ciple of  Jesus  to-day  it  is  impossible  to  read  these 
chapters  in  the  first  Gospels  without  an  ever-deep- 
ening sense  of  disappointment  and  incongruity. 
Instead  of  the  simplicity,  the  sanity,  the  spirituality 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  the  Parables,  the 
words  at  the  Last  Supper,  here  are  extravagance, 
literalism,  apocalypticism.  This  Jesus  seated  out- 
side the  walls  of  Jerusalem  is  another  Jesus  from 
him  of  the  Galilean  hills  and  lakeside,  as  well  as  of 
the  upper  room. 

I 

The  Jesus  who  speaks  in  the  thirteenth  of  Mark 
and  the  twenty-fourth  of  Matthew  is  not  the  Jesus 
Thespcctac  "^^^  takcs  farcwell  of  his  disciples  at  the 
sitriuiVsec-  Paschal  mcal,  in  the  searching  spiritual 
ond  Coming  language  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  The 
two  accounts  as  they  stand  are  mutually  incompat- 
ible representations  of  himself  and  of  his  kingdom. 
In  the  Synoptic  discourse  Jesus  represents  his 
return  as  external,  cataclysmic,  spectacular,  —  "  on 
the  clouds  of  heaven  with  power  and  great  glory" ; 
in  the  Johannine,  he  represents  his  return  as  invisi- 
ble and  spiritual,  —  "I  come  unto  you,"  "  Ye  in  me, 
and  I  in  you."  *  Between  these  two  representations 

^  Of  the  two  allusions  to  a  Second  Coming  in  this  Gospel 
(14:3  and  16:  22)  the  first  refers  to  the  entrance  of  the  disci- 
ple into  the  future  life  —  *' tliat  where  I  am,  there  ye  may 
be  also"  —  and  the  second  to  the  reappearance  of  Christ 
after  his  resurrection. 

[■sO 


Christ  Returning 

we  must  choose.  Shall  we  do  so  upon  the  mere 
basis  of  the  priority  of  the  Synoptic  tradition  or 
upon  the  deeper  ground  of  inherent  superiority 
and  self-consistency?  Which  of  the  two  represen- 
tations coincides  best  with  Jesus'  previous  teaching, 
with  his  character,  with  his  attitude  toward  Jewish 
ideas,  with  his  approach  to  the  cross,  his  conduct 
upon  trial,  his  outlook  upon  the  world  and  his 
estimate  of  its  forces?  Upon  such  principles  of 
choice  there  can  be  no  hesitation.  We  turn  inevi- 
tably from  the  Jesus  of  the  Advent  discourse  of  the 
Synoptics,  unnatural,  provincial,  predictive,  to  the 
Jesus  of  the  last  discourse  in  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
familiar,  sane,  spiritual.  In  Him  we  recognize  the 
true,  ever-living,  ever-returning  Lord. 

This  preference  for  the  latter  tradition  by  no 
means  requires  the  Johannine  authorship  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  (although,  in  the  absence  of  suffi- 
cient data,  the  Johannine  tradition  is  too  strong 
to  be  lightly  set  aside),  nor  does  it  require  the 
acceptance  of  the  discourse  at  the  Last  Supper 
as  the  ipsissima  verba  of  Christ.  It  simply  re- 
quires that  which  such  scholars  as  Wendt  and 
Harnack  concede,  that  this  is  a  genuine  and 
trustworthy  representation  of  the  mind  of  Christ, 
from  the  view-point  of  a  disciple  of  rare  spiritual 
insight. 


[iS3] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 


II 

Nor  is  it  simply  the  Johannine  account  of  the 
returning  Christ  with  which  the  representation  con- 
The  Kingdom  talncd  in  the  discourse  on  the  Last 
fhVpoAent"'*  Things  conflicts.  //  is  entirely  out  of 
^^^^^^"^^^^^harmony^alsOf  with  the  earlier  representa- 
tioiis  of  the  Synoptic  narratives  themselves.  The 
kingdom  parables,  so  characteristic  of  the  first  two 
Gospels,  can  with  difficulty  be  reconciled  with  the 
lurid  pictures  of  the  second  coming  of  this  dis- 
course. The  kingdom  cannot  be  like  a  mustard- 
seed,  or  leaven  hid  in  the  meal,  and  at  the  same 
time  be  preluded  by  heavens  shaking  and  stars 
falling.  No  ;  the  earlier  part  of  the  Synoptic 
tradition,  in  the  main,  coincides  with  the  Johannine 
in  representing  Jesus  as  from  first  to  last,  ethical 
and  spiritual  in  his  attitude,  relying  upon  spiritual 
truths,  spiritual  forces,  spiritual  methods.  It  is 
hardly  loyal  to  him  to  conceive  him  at  the  end  as 
renouncing  this  for  materialistic  Jewish  concep- 
tions and  programs.  The  case  is  one  of  united 
preponderating  Synoptic  and  Johannine  tradition 
versus  a  single  alien  section  of  Synoptic  narrative.^ 
It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration   to   assert   that   the 

*  It  is  true  that  there  are  other  detached  references  which 
seem  to  convey  the  same  external,  material  conception,  as, 
for  example,  Mark  8 :  38-9  :  i.  But  this  is  an  allusion  to  the 
Daniel  passage  and  is  a  merely  figurative  expression  of  his 
coming  recognition. 

[IS4] 


Christ  Returning 

issue  amounts  to  this :  Was  Jesus  true  to  himself 
to  the  last,  or  not?  That  he  was  thus  faithful 
to  his  higher  purpose,  everything  goes  to  prove. 
The  Risen  and  Ascending  Christ  is  still  true  to  his 
earlier  teaching  and  attitude.  His  words  are  of 
witness-bearing,  the  enduement  of  the  Spirit  and 
of  his  own  unfailing,  unseen  Presence,  and  not 
of  his  speedy  return.  It  is  only  the  two  men  in 
white  apparel  who  reassert  the  temporal  external 
eschatology  that  so  misled  the  early  Church. 

Ill 

How,  then,  account  for  this  strange  stratum,  this 
incongruous  element,  in  the  sayings  of  Christ?  It 
is  possible,  of  course,  to  apply  heroic  The  probable 
treatment  to  the  narrative,  and,  even  SeLal^Dis- 
without  external  warrant  of  any  sort,  *^°""* 
cut  out  these  alien  passages  as  belonging  to  an 
impure  Jewish  tradition.  But  that  would  leave  the 
universal  expectation  of  the  Second  Coming  in 
the  Early  Church  too  far  unexplained.  It  is  much 
more  reasonable  to  conjecture  that  Jesus  uttered  a 
prophecy,  in  his  own  manner,  of  things  to  come 
which  was  so  misunderstood  and  distorted  by  the 
medium  through  which  it  passed,  as  to  produce  a 
false  and  misleading  perspective  and  impression. 
Modern  scholarship  has  made  it  possible  for  us 
to  disentangle,  somewhat,  the  confusion  of  these 
words  as  reported,  and  form  a  reasonable  conjec- 
ture concerning  their  purport.  Three  main  threads 
[■55] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

of  coherent  prediction  appear  running  through 
the  highly  colored  fabric  of  the  prophecy :  — 
(  I  )  the  approaching  destruction  of  Jerusalem 
with  the  consequent  disintegration  of  the  Jewish 
nation  —  a  catastrophe  which  Jesus  clearly  antici- 
pated; (2)  the  turbulence  of  the  world  history 
as  it  lay  before  his  vision;  (3)  the  marked  and 
triumphant  effect  which  his  own  cause  was  to  have 
among  the  forces  of  history.  In  this  triumph  he 
himself  was  to  be  personally  present  as  Leader.^ 
The  chief  object  of  the  whole  prophecy  seems  to 
have  been  to  make  the  disciples  observant,  watch- 
ful, active.  In  this  prophecy  he  again  made  use  of 
the  passage  from  Daniel  from  which  he  may  have 
selected  his  own  title,  and  which,  better  than  any 
other  Old  Testament  prophecy,  furnished  the  key  to 
the  true  nature  of  his  own  kingdom,  as  contrasted 
with  other  great  world  forces  and  movements. 
Unless  conservative  scholarship  has  entirely  mis- 
read Jesus,  he  used  this  apocalyptic  passage  from 
Daniel  symbolically  and  not  literally,  whereas 
the  disciples,  the  Apostolic  Church  and  the  great 
majority  of  Christians  in  all  the  ages  since,  have 
accepted  the  words  as  a  literal  description  of  the 

*  **  For  Jesus,  the  idea  of  his  second  coming  to  execute 
judgment  and  to  consummate  salvation  was  equivalent  to  the 
certainty  of  the  continuance  of  his  Messianic  significance  in 
the  kingdom  of  God  in  spite  of  his  death."  Wendt,  Teachings 
ofjesus^  Vol.  II,  p.  283.  But  it  was  more  than  Messianic 
significance  ;  rather.  Messianic  leadership. 

[■S6] 


Christ  Eeturning 

manner  of  his  second  coming.  No  more  flagrant 
instance  of  the  bondage  of  the  letter  is  to  be  found 
in  history.  And  yet,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  that 
in  the  providence  of  God  this  misconception  of  a 
speedy  Second  Advent  really  helped  on  an  unde- 
veloped and  short-sighted  Christianity  to  take  its 
infant  steps  until  it  could  bear  more  light,  take 
wider  visions,  and  form  larger  conceptions. 

IV 

But  if,  brushing  aside  the  confusions  and  mis- 
understandings of  the  discourse  as  we  have  it,  we 
break  through  symbol  and  figure  to  the  Christ's  man 
real  meaning  of  the  Master,  what  do  we  ^^^^''^s 
find  it  to  be?  Is  there  to  be  a  return  of  Christ? 
If  so,  what  manner  of  parousia  is  it?  No  satisfac- 
tory answer  is  possible  save  that  which  has  been 
slowly  dawning  upon  the  Church  through  the  un- 
folding of  history  and  the  progress  of  Christianity, 
namely,  that  the  return  of  the  King  is  unseen  and 
spiritual,  like  the  kingdom  itself.  Thus  has  Christ 
been  not  only  a  Living  Christ  but  a  Returning 
Christ.  Thus  has  he  been  returning  from  the  day 
of  his  ascension  to  this.  Thus  did  he  return  to  his 
own  generation  at  Pentecost,  at  Antioch,  at  Corinth. 
In  power  and  great  glory  he  descended  to  trans- 
form the  Roman  Empire,  and  to  become  King  of 
the  nations  of  the  West.  He  returned  at  the  Refor- 
mation to  resume  his  lordship  over  the  Church. 
At  the  Great  Awakening  he  sent  forth  his  angels 
[>57] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

to  gather  his  elect  from  the  four  winds.  At  the 
rise  of  the  modern  missionary  movement  the  Bride- 
groom came  and  they  that  were  ready  went  in  with 
him  to  the  marriage  feast.  In  the  release  of  the 
slaves,  the  reconstruction  of  prisons,  the  coming 
of  the  era  of  hospitals  and  homes,  every  unclouded 
eye  saw  him.     In  the  modern  social  movement  he 

is  the  real  Leader.  The  truth  of  the  Re- 
already  tummg  Christ  IS  thc  truth  that  not  only 

is  he  with  his  own  always,  but  that  he 
comes  to  humanity  in  ever  fresh  measures  and  un- 
expected manners  to  save,  and  further  save,  and 
yet  further  save,  humanity. 

And  not  only  has  the  Christ  been  returning  in 
power  and  great  glory  in  all  the  Christian  centuries, 

but  still  more   is  he    to    return    in  the 

years  that  are  before.  They  are  right 
who  believe  that  Christ  has  already  come.  They 
are  most  right  who  believe  that  he  is  yet  to  come. 
Unto  the  purifying  of  the  Church  he  is  to  come, 
unto  the  redemption  of  society,  the  overthrow  of 
wrong,  the  universalizing  of  opportunity,  the  fed- 
eration of  the  nations,  the  eternal  triumph  of  peace 
and  righteousness  and  love,  he  is  to  come.  Even 
so,  come,  Lord  Jesus ! 


And  still  to 
come 


[158] 


XX 

CHRIST  AND  SOCIAL  REDEMPTION 

Is  the  Christocentric  theology  in  touch  with  mod- 
ern life?  Has  it  a  message  for  the  time?  This  is 
its  ultimate  test.  We  are  in  the  whirl  The  Final 
and  ferment  of  a  period  of  social  recon-  "^^^^ 
struction,  in  which  —  however  blind  the  average 
man  may  be  to  the  fact  —  not  only  ethics  but  the- 
ology is  deeply  involved.  Has  the  Christocentric 
theology  any  cogent  and  vital  contribution  to  make 
toward  the  settlement  of  the  problems  that  press 
upon  us? 


Manifestly  one  of  the  foremost  requisites  of  social 
progress  is  a  right  and  true  conception  of  the  struc- 
ture of  society.    If  men  are  held  together 

^  **  Is  there  a  Di- 

by  nothing  more  than  physical  depend-  vine  Purpose 
ences,  utilitarian  motives,  material  ad- 
vantages, the  future  of  humanity  is  dark  —  a  long 
vista  of  clashes  and  readjustments  —  with,  at  the 
best,  nothing  in  the  end  but  superficial  progress, 
material  gains,  greater  comforts,  finer  facilities,  an 
apocalypse   of  conveniences   and  advantages,  in- 

[•59] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

dustrial  truce,  social  stratification,  but  no  vision 
of  human  brotherhood,  universal  peace  and  good- 
will, world-wide  righteousness  and  love.  With  a 
future  limited  to  material  progress,  it  is  an  open 
question  whether  society  is  worth  perpetuating, 
whether  the  game  is  worth  the  candle.  But  if 
humanity  is  grounded  in  a  divine  purpose  and  is 
capable  of  indefinite  progress  in  true  worthiness, 
if  society  can  become  a  true  mutuality  of  love  and 
sympathy,  then  the  face  of  our  problem  is  wholly 
changed,  a  great  hope  takes  possession  of  us,  a 
vision  of  spiritual  splendor  attends  us: 

"  Order,  courage,  return, 
Eyes  rekindling,  and  prayers. 


On,  to  the  bound  of  the  waste. 
On,  to  the  City  of  God."  i 


Unless  society  were  constituted  in  a  divine  order, 
it  could  never  have  reached  even  its  present  state 
Yea;  for  the  °^  advancement.  Nothing  but  the  sense 
" obugati^'  o^  moral  obligation  could  possibly  have 
reveals  jt  brought  men  on  into  an  ordered  and 
secure  state  of  society.  The  beavers  have  their 
colonies,  the  bees  their  hives,  but  there  is  no  im- 
provement in  organization  and  structure  from  one 
millennium  to  another.  Man  has  not  remained 
stationary,  and  cannot  This  sense  of  obligation, 
controlling  man's  growing  intelligence  as  well  as 
his  imperious  appetites  and  ambitions  —  what  is  it? 

1  Matthew  Arnold,  Rugby  Chapel. 
[i6o] 


Christ  and  Social  Redemption 

whence  is  it?  The  great  consensus  of  mankind  has 
been  that  it  issues  from  a  divine  Source.  Latter-day- 
attempts  to  find  the  genesis  of  the  moral  sense  in  a 
source  no  higher  than  custom  and  convenience  have 
not  been  successful.  Men  are  deeply  conscious 
that  here,  in  the  sense  of  Duty,  is  something  that 
comes  from  above  and  beyond  themselves. 

The  Christocentric  theology  comes  forward  with 
the  declaration  that  the  sense  of  obligation  is  not 
merely  an  instinct  implanted  by  God  in  the  soul, 
but  that  it  is  the  living  will  of  God  in  the  soul  — 
the  Christ  of  conscience  —  that  by  virtue  of  this 
common  divine  indwelling  every  man  is  of  worth 
and  can  become  a  true  son  of  God,  and  that  society, 
possessing  this  universal  divine  Presence,  is  con- 
stituted in  God  and  can  and  will  develop  into  God- 
likeness. 

The  older  theology,  with  its  emphasis  upon  the 
divine  sovereignty,  with  its  denial  of  the  worth  of 
all  unregenerate  virtue  and  of  the  presence  of 
Christ  outside  the  pale  of  the  Church, 

^        .   ,      .  1  1  r  1  A  Theology 

and  with  its  wreckage  plan  oi  redemp-  for  social 

,  -  .  Redemption 

tion,  had  no  adequate  theory  of  society, 
no  true  conception  of  the  relation  of  humanity  to 
Christ,  either  genetically  or  historically.  It  is  im- 
possible for  Roman  Catholicism,  with  its  institu- 
tionalism;  or  Calvinism,  with  its  pessimism;  or 
Arminianism,  with  its  individualism  ;  or  Unitarian- 
ism,  with  its  naturalism,  to  grasp  the  idea  of  social 
redemption.  Not  one  of  the  theologies  of  the  past 
[  i6i  ] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

has  had  breadth  and  power  enough  to  realize  the 
fundamental  relation  of  Christ  to  society,  in  its  very- 
nature  and  constitution,  or  to  embrace  humanity  as 
a  whole  in  the  scope  of  the  divine  purpose.  The 
kingdom  of  God  is  alien  to  them  all.  It  is  only 
a   theology   that   dares    put    Christ    at 

The  Principle      ,  ,    t  .        r  i 

of  Social         the  very  center  and  heart  of  humanity 

Redemption         ,  /.  ,  .  .       .    ,        - 

that  founds  society  on  a  principle  deep 
enough  and  firm  enough  to  uphold  the  walls  of 
a  city  of  God  on  earth.  Nothing  but  a  Christo- 
centric  theology  will  convince  the  world  that  life 
itself,  in  its  every  part  and  relation,  is  sacred, 
spiritual,  and  belongs  to  God,  and  that  whatsoever 
society  does  in  word  or  in  deed  can  and  should  be 
done  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  who  is  its 
Heart  and  Soul. 

II 

Not  only  does  the  Christocentric  theology  fur- 
nish a  principle  for  social  redemption,  but  a  motive. 
Nothing  will  inspire  an  enduring  enthu- 

The  Motive  .  /*     ,  f^  •    ^      •  i  r 

for  Social        siasm  for  humanity,  a  victorious  love  for 

Redemption  ... 

men,  except  the  conviction  that  every 
man  is  of  inestimable  worth  to  God  and  to  human- 
ity, that  there  is  something  in  the  individual  man, 
as  well  as  something  in  humanity  as  humanity,  that 
is  of  exceeding  and  eternal  value.  For  that  con- 
viction the  Christocentric  theology  supplies  a  basis 
in  the  conception  of  the  Indwelling  Christ,  who  is 
in  all  men,  giving  to  each  his  individual  worth  and 

[162] 


Christ  and  Social  Redemption 

to  humanity  as  a  whole  its  splendor  and  possibility. 
To  free  this  divine  life,  this  Christ  within  each  and 
within  the  whole,  and  make  him  dominant  by 
means  of  the  appeal  of  the  Christ  of  history, — 
this  is  the  joyous  task  of  Christianity ;  not  to  make 
humanity  divine,  —  for  it  is  that  already,  potentially, 
—  but  to  bring  out  and  make  regnant  the  Divine 
within  it. 

Beside  principle  and  motive  for  social  redemp- 
tion, therefore,  the  Christocentric  theology  also 
furnishes  means.  —  by  availing  itself  of 

,  ,     -     .  '  ^  ^,  .  The  Means 

the   definite    and    concrete   redemption  for  social 

...  Tx.  ^1     '  TT  Redemption 

afforded  in  the  Historic  Christ.  Here 
lies  its  power.i  It  believes  in  revelation  as  well  as 
immanence,  in  the  Christ  of  Calvary  as  well  as  the 
Christ  of  conscience,  in  the  Son  of  man  as  well  as 
the  eternal  Logos.  And  in  the  Living  Christ,  as 
he  fulfils  and  potentializes  the  Indwelling  Christ, 
it  finds  the  only  sufficient  Redeemer  of  humanity. 
Lacking  such  a  historical  revelation,  we  should  be 
without  convincing  assurance  of  the  divine  purpose 
and  love  and  without  adequate  leadership  in  social 
redemption. 

^  "  There  is  no  question  in  the  world  so  vital  as  this  of  the 
spiritual  power.  The  temperance  question,  the  sexual  ques- 
tion, the  war  question,  the  Irish  question,  the  negro  question, 
the  question  of  labor,  the  question  of  the  proletariat  and  other 
such  are  most  grave  and  pressing.  But  none  of  them  are  so 
grave  and  deep  in  the  long  run  as  the  question  of  the  spiritual 
power."  P.  T.  Forsyth,  Report  of  Second  International 
Congregational  Council^  p.  62. 

[163] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 


III 

Inspiring  and  impelling  as  is  the  man  Jesus, 
as  such  alone  he  would  be  insufficient  to  accom- 
plish the  redemption  of  humanity.  The  reduction 
of  Jesus  to  the  level  of  ordinary  humanity  and  the 
corresponding  deification  of  humanity  as  suffi- 
cient to  attain  its  own  salvation  apparently  results 
in  stagnation  of  effort.  To  make  God  a  laborer 
together  with  man,  instead  of  man  a  laborer  to- 
gether with  God,  is  stultifying.  It  needs 
ceSeredThe-  ^  God-infuscd  religion,  a  Christ-centered 
.de^uJJcfor  theology,  to  stir  men  to  devoted  action 
dcmptioS'  ^or  social  salvation,  for  world  redemp- 
tion. The  great  social  redemption  move- 
ment of  England  and  America,  not  only  in  its 
evangelistic  phases,  but  in  social  reform  and  social 
settlement  has  been,  in  the  main,  grounded  in 
a  Christ-exalting  theology.  Maurice,  Kingsley, 
General  Booth,  Arnold  Toynbee,  and  the  men  who 
have  reproduced  their  spirit  and  deeds  in  America, 
have  had  a  great  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  spirit 
always,  if  not  always  in  method,  have  made  him 
central  in  motive  and  in  aim.  The  great  mission- 
ary enterprise,  the  noblest  and  most  fruitful  advance 
toward  social  redemption  in  modern  times,  has  been 
Christ-animated  and  Christ-directed. 

Around  personality  converge  all  problems,  all 
tasks,  all  hopes.  And  the  Christ  Personality  alone 
is  sufficient  to  meet  them.     "  Jesus  imparted  new 

[164] 


Christ  and  Social  Redemption 

values  to  things:  He  scattered  new  thoughts 
broadcast  in  the  world.  But  it  was  only  His  per- 
son that  gave  these  new  values  and  these  new 
thoughts  that  victorious  power  which  transformed 
the  world."  ^ 

1  Paul  Wernle:    The  Beginnings  of  Christianity^  Vol,  I, 
P-37. 


[i6s] 


XXI 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  CHRIST 

The  most  marked  characteristic  of  modern  reli- 
gious life  is  undoubtedly  the  breaking  down  of  the 
old  division  between  the  sacred  and  the  secular, 
the  Church  and  the  world.  The  fact  is  patent;  it 
needs  no  demonstration.     What  does  it  signify? 

When  an  earnest  and  observant  soul  looks  out 
into  the  world  about  him  and  tries  to  gauge  its 
moral  and  spiritual  status,  he  becomes  deeply  per- 
plexed. He  is  met  by  an  inextricable  confusion, 
an  interblending  of  righteousness  and  unrighteous- 
ness, of  selfishness  and  unselfishness,  of  faith  and 
The  World  unfaith,  which  leaves  him  bewildered. 
Prophet's  ^^  times  he  is  optimistic  and  filled  with 
^'■°"  hope ;   at  times  he  is  tempted  to  reecho 

the  severe  and  solemn  verdict  of  John  Henry  New- 
man :  "  If  I  looked  into  a  mirror  and  did  not  see 
my  face,  I  should  have  the  same  sort  of  feeling 
which  actually  comes  upon  me,  when  I  look  into 
this  living,  busy  world  and  see  no  reflection  of  its 
Creator.  .  .  .  The  sight  of  the  world  is  nothing 
else  than  the  prophet's  scroll,  full  of  lamentation  and 
mourning  and  woe."  ^    This  is  the  earnest  outcry 

^  Apologia  Pro  Vita  Sua. 
[  i66  ] 


The  Kingdom  of  Christ 

of  a  soul  very  jealous  for  God,  and  yet  it  is,  after 
all,  a  narrow  judgment.  It  fails  to  take  account  of 
the  good  that  lies  embedded  in  the  life  of  the  world, 
running  like  a  vein  of  gleaming  gold  through  its 
otherwise  worthless  strata.  The  gold  is  unmined 
and  may  not  be  ecclesiastically  marketable,  but  it 
is  there  nevertheless,  and  —  though  his  stamp  may 
not  yet  be  upon  it  —  it  is  God's. 

I 

"  To  see  life  steadily  and  see  it  whole  *'  ^  —  that 
alone  will  give  the  true  perspective.  And  the  more 
steadily  and  comprehensively  one  views  life,  the 
more  clearly  do  two  convictions  shape  themselves 
out  of  its  confusions  and  contradictions. 

*-r.i        /-••!•  f  Eternity 

The  first  is  that  into  the  very  structure  at  the  Heart 

.      ry  r    y-r        '  r  -  of  Things 

and  fiber  of  life,  its  necessary  function- 
ings,  its  common  cares,  its  inevitable  ongoings,  are 
wrought  sacred  possibilities  and  symbols, — poten- 
cies, disciplines  of  an  eternal  order.  Toil,  sleep,  the 
daily  meal,  home  duties,  community  life,  trade, 
study,  religious  and  civic  relations  —  all  the  obliga- 
tions, services,  and  dependences  that  make  up  the 
warp  and  woof  of  daily  life  are  in  themselves  holy 
and  beautiful  and  capable  of  such  educative  and 
fruitful  discipline,  such  harmony  and  holiness,  that 
the  man  of  insight  who  has  caught  the  true  mean- 
ing of  life  cannot  rest  content  with  the  common- 
place, sordid  world  in  which  the  majority  of  men 

^^^^-  1  Matthew  Arnold. 

[167] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

There  is  one,  and  but  one,  conception  command- 
ing and  comprehensive  enough  to  express  and 
embody  the  highest  ideal  of  human  society,  and 
that  is  the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  Kingdom  of 
God  is  no  less  than  the  world  transformed  into  the 
medium  and  expression  of  the  divine  life,  —  the 
home,  the  state,  the  church,  business,  society,  edu- 
cation, literature,  art,  everything,  become  the  organ 
and  instrument  of  God's  downreaching  and  man's 
upreaching  life.  Denied,  disclaimed,  thrust  aside, 
neglected,  as  this  ideal  of  a  perfect  God-filled  human 
society  has  been,  humanity  is  smitten  to  the  heart 
with  its  goodliness.  Men  in  all  generations  have 
dreamed  of  a  Golden  Age  to  come.  The  prophets 
of  Israel  stretched  suppliant  hands  to  God  for  its 
advent.  The  Christian  Church  saw  the  Holy  City, 
New  Jerusalem,  descending  out  of  God  from  heaven. 
Poets  have  sung  the  coming  glory  and  reformers 
have  suffered  and  died  that  it  might  be  hastened. 
In  one  form  or  another  the  ideal  has  been  growing 
clearer,  more  real,  more  certain.  Jesus  gave  it  its 
fairest  form,  its  noblest  description,  its  strongest 
impulse,  when  he  called  it  the  Kingdom  of  God 
and  described  it  as  the  pearl  of  great  price,  the 
treasure  hid  in  the  field,  the  seed  growing  into  a 
great  and  goodly  tree.  This  Kingdom  is  at  hand, 
he  said  to  men ;  it  is  among  you ;  seek  it,  serve  it, 
realize  it. 

It  is  only  in  our  own  time  that  the  true  character 
and  scope  of  the  Kingdom  has  come  to  be  fully 
[i68] 


The  Kingdom  of  Christ 

recognized.    Heretofore  the  seeker  after  God,  the 
man  of  ideals,  has  thought  to  find  God  and  fashion 
his  character  apart  from  the   world,  in  « Not  that 
the  hermitage,  the  monastery,  the  church.  shoSidest 
Now  he  sees  that  he  can  win  the  ideal  SJtVfthT 
only  /;/  the  world,  as  he  finds  God  in  its  ^°^^'^" 
commonest  duty  and  experience  and  fills  the  whole 
sphere  of  life  with  the  endeavor  to  find  his  pres- 
ence and  realize  his  will. 

And  yet  how  far  are  we  from  the  Kingdom  still ! 
The  ancient,  bitter  denunciations  of  the  world  even 
now  speak  a  partial  truth.  How  sodden  is  busi- 
ness still,  —  business  which  ought  to  be  the  very 
means  and  instrument  of  human  intercourse  and 
fellowship;  how  selfish  is  trade,  how  infamous 
politics,  how  self-seeking  and  unaspiring  literature, 
how  artificial  society,  how  imperfect  and  worldly 
the  Church  !  How  near  is  the  Kingdom,  yet  how 
far! 

II 

Thus  there  grows  up  within  us  the  second  con- 
viction, as  strong  and  as  clear  as  the  first,  that,  ex- 
cept by  the  power  and  grace  of  God, 
the  kingdom  of  God,  the  redemption  of   kingi!>m 

.  .  T      •       come" 

human  society  can  never  come.     It  is 
his  Kingdom ;  he  alone  can  bring  it  to  pass.    Again 
and  again  men  have  tried  to  establish  this  ideal  for 
themselves,  by  means  of  their  own  human  effort 
alone.    Utopias,  revolutions,  reforms,  communisms, 

[169] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

democracies,  socialisms,  —  how  hopefully  have 
they  been  instituted,  how  hopelessly  have  they 
failed  !  Human  nature  is  too  impotent  and  too  viti- 
ated to  succeed  of  itself.  A  great  cloud  of  dis- 
appointment and  dismay  has  been  slowly  gather- 
ing over  the  hearts  of  those  who  watch  for  the 
coming  of  the  Kingdom  because  America  has  so 
far  failed  to  realize  the  hope  of  humanity.  Munici- 
pal evils,  legislative  corruption,  industrial  strife, 
social  estrangement,  spiritual  lethargy,  —  are  these 
the  fruits  of  the  civilization  begun  in  such  promise 
and  consecration  in  this  virgin  Western  world?  Is 
humanity  to  go  on  forever  at  "  this  poor,  dying 
rate  "?  Is  the  world  never  to  roll  on  into  the  light 
of  the  Golden  Age  of  human  brotherhood  and 
peace?  It  does  not  satisfy  the  eager  heart  of  hope 
to  be  reminded  of  the  progress  already  made,  and 
of  the  necessarily  slow  and  gradual  gains  by  which 
alone  advance  in  higher  life  is  made.  God  can 
surely  do  more  for  his  children,  after  two  thousand 
years  of  Christianity,  than  this ! 

Ill 

What,  then,  if  men  should  learn  at  last  to  rec- 
ognize their  own  impotence  and  to  rely  upon  God? 
What  if  the  heart  of  humanity  should  turn  and 
become  again  as  the  heart  of  a  little  child?  What 
if  a  wide-spread  dissatisfaction  with  material  pros- 
perity,  with   ease   and   pleasure   and    selfishness, 

[170] 


TJu  Kingdom  of  Christ 

should  come  over  our  twentieth  century  clvih'za- 
tion,  —  a  great  longing  for  righteousness  and  faith? 
Would  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  delay  and  halt 
as  at  present?  Would  not  the  Golden  Age  be 
ushered  in  and  humanity  come  at  last  to  its  own? 
Some  such  longing  and  hope  as  this  seems  to 
be  stirring  in  the  hearts  of  many  throughout 
Christendom  to-day,  based  upon  the  conviction 
that  political  reform  and  industrial  improvement 
and  social  betterment  are  not  enough,  indeed  that 
they  are  not  possible  in  any  real  way,  without  a 
regeneration  that  goes  deeper  than  ex- 

^      ,  ,      ,     r  t  "Thine  is  the 

ternal  wrongs  and  defects  and  renews  kingdom,  and 

1        r     *^®  power, 

the  very  heart  of  the  individual  and  of   andthegiory, 

^  forever" 

society.  Nothing  of  power  and  per- 
manence can  come  in  social  redemption  so  long  as 
we  continue  to  make  of  God  an  Adjunct,  an  Assist- 
ant, an  Abettor  of  humanity  in  the  struggle  for 
progress,  and  of  Christ  simply  a  Teacher,  a  Type,  a 
Helper,  to  our  ends.  This  is  a  self-exaltation  of 
humanity,  an  affront  to  the  divine  Being,  a  per- 
version of  the  eternal  order,  which  can  result  only 
in  futility  and  disaster.  Only  the  attitude  of  faith, 
of  humihty,  and  of  service  which  alone  befits  man, 
can  prepare  him  for  his  part,  as  a  servant  of  God, 
in  bringing  in  that  Kingdom  which  God  withholds 
only  because  man  is  unprepared  to  receive  it. 

God,  not  man,  is  the  Author  of  the  Kingdom. 
If  man  has  dreamed  of  it,  portrayed  it,  struggled 
for  it,  it  is  only  because  God  has  given  him  the 
['7'] 


Christ  and  the  Eternal  Order 

vision,  furnished  him  the  motive,  supplied  him  with 
the  strength.  And  if  God  is  the  Author  and  End 
of  the  Kingdom,  God  in  Christ  is  the  Soul  of  it. 
Central  within  it,  furnishing  the  concrete  personal 
leadership  without  which  it  can  never  reach  fulfil- 
ment, is  the  Living  Christ.  It  is  he  who  occupies 
the  throne  of  the  Kingdom,  not  in  God's  stead, 
not  as  his  representative,  but  as  the  revelation  of 
himself  in  his  human  aspects  and  kinship.  Serv- 
ing this  King,  one  serves  not  only  the  King  of 
kings,  but  the  King  of  all  kingdoms,  earthly  and 
celestial. 

It  is  the  very  presence  and  grace  of  God,  felt 
and  recognized,  not  only  as  a  pervasive  conscious- 
ness but  as  a  concrete  reality  in  Christ, 
name  of  the     which  givcs  this  ideal  of  the  Kingdom 

Lord  Jesus"      ...  ,      ^        . 

mclusiveness  and  effectiveness,  mcentive 
and  momentum,  while  other  social  ideals  fade  and 
fail.  To  make  Jesus  Christ  Lord  of  trade,  of  in- 
dustry, of  art,  of  education,  of  science,  of  literature, 
of  all  human  pursuits  and  enterprises,  —  this  is  the 
way  to  bring  each  to  highest  fulfilment  and  to  re- 
late each  rightly  to  all  other  human  interests.  This 
is  the  summum  bonum  of  human  society,  the  way 
out  of  chaos  to  order,  out  of  discord  and  evil  and 
imperfection,  to  harmony,  holiness,  and  happiness. 

IV 

But  if  this  Kingdom  were  simply  a  consumma- 
tion,  a   climax,  a  coral  island  lifted   out   of  the 


The  Kingdom  of  Christ 

waters  of  oblivion  upon  the  sacrificial  deposit  of 
those  who  lived  not  to  share  its  blessing,  it  could 
be  neither  a  truly  human  nor  a  truly  ..  ^j^^^  ^^^^ 
divine  Kingdom.  It  needs  to  embrace  Soum  nofbe 
humanity,  to  include  all  generations;  it  "^^^^p^"**^*" 
needs  that  men  come  from  the  East  and  from  the 
West  to  sit  down  within  it  and  share  its  fulfilled 
joy.  It  must  needs  be,  that  is,  not  only  historical 
but  eternal,  not  only  earthly  but  heavenly.  Such 
is  the  New  Testament  representation. 

The  beginnings  of  the  Kingdom  reach  far  back 
of  history,  of  humanity,  back  into  the  heart  of 
Eternal  Love,  creating  all  things,  purposing  all 
things,  before  all  time,  through  the  Eternal  Word 
of  Wisdom.  The  builders  of  the  Kingdom  —  how 
they  multiply  upon  our  vision  through  the  receding 
generations,  a  vast  army,  each  one  who  obeys  the 
Divine  Will,  the  eternal  Christ  within  him,  making 
his  contribution  to  the  great  structure  that  has 
risen  through  the  ages,  and  within  which,  in  its 
completion,  all  shall  be  gathered  who  have  aided, 
however  slightly,  in  its  construction ;  and  we  know 
not  how  many  more.  For  the  kingdom  is  human- 
ity's Kingdom,  and  the  Christ  is  humanity's  Christ 


[173] 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 

I 

HISTORICAL  SKETCH  OF  THE  CHRISTO- 
CENTRIC  THEOLOGY! 

Primitive  Christian  life  and  thought  were  Christocen- 
tric.  To  the  disciples,  Jesus  was  all  in  all.  Paul  found 
in  Christ  not  only  the  absorbing  passion  of  his  life,  but 
the  power  of  God,  and  the  wisdom  of  God,  unto  salva- 
tion. The  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  in  his  profound 
meditation,  found  himself  impelled  to  associate  Jesus 
with  the  formative  Principle  of  creation  and  the  Light 
that  lighteth  every  man  coming  into  the  world.  The 
Greek  theology,  finding  the  nexus  of  philosophy  and 
Christianity  in  this  Logos  doctrine,  conceived  Christ  as 
the  incarnate  Reason  that  illumines  the  universe.  Origen 
centered  his  rich  and  radiating  system  of  theology  in 
Christ.  Athanasius,  touching  a  deeper  and  more  ethical 
spring,  found  in  Christ's  eternal  Sonship  not  only  the 
clue  to  the  nature  of  God  and  of  humanity,  but  also  the 
link  binding  the  two  together.  The  Antiochian  theology 
followed  the  Nicene  in  concentrating  its  thought  upon 
Christ. 

But  with  the  rise  of  Western  Christianity  the  doctrine 
of  the  centrality  of  Christ  sank  into  subservience  to  that 
of  the  divine  sovereignty  as  set  forth  by  Augustine.    The 

^  Reprinted,  by  permission,  from  The  Bibliotheca  Sacra^ 
July,  1905 

12  [177] 


Appendix 

Augustine  of  the  "  Confessions  "  is  centered  upon  Christ, 
but  the  Augustine  of  the  "  City  of  God  "  is  absorl)ed 
in  the  problem  of  the  Church  and  the  ground  of  its 
primacy.  "  It  almost  seems,"  says  Professor  Allen,  "  as 
though,  if  Christ  were  left  out  altogether,  the  scheme  of 
Augustine  would  still  maintain  its  consistency  as  a  whole 
and  retain  its  value  as  a  working  system."  ^  Augustin- 
ianism  was  perpetuated  by  Calvinism.  The  authority  of 
the  Church  in  Catholicism,  and  of  the  Bible  in  Protes- 
tantism, inevitably  obscured  the  supremacy  of  Christ.  It 
was  not  until,  through  the  combined  agency  of  philoso- 
phy, science,  and  Biblical  criticism,  Christianity  was 
released  from  the  bondage  of  authority,  that  a  day 
dawned  for  the  free  reconstruction  of  Christology,  and 
the  reassertion  of  the  Christocentric  faith. 

It  is  instructive  to  watch  the  current  of  a  new  move- 
ment in  the  realm  of  thought  widen  and  deepen.  One 
can  see,  by  anticipation,  spiritual  fields  fertilized  and 
mill-wheels  turned  by  it,  if  it  be  of  sufficient  force  and 
significance.  Such  interest  unquestionably  attaches  to 
the  modem  movement  toward  the  Christologizing  of 
theology,  the  rereading  of  the  universe  in  terms  of  the 
consciousness  of  Christ. 

If  we  ask  through  whom  this  movement,  in  its  modem 
form,  took  its  rise,  the  name  of  Friedrich  Schleiermacher, 
that  great  revivifier  of  spiritual  theology,  takes  prece- 
dence of  all  others.  "  His  it  was  to  make  Christ  and 
his  redemption  the  center  of  one  of  the  most  skilfully 
developed  systems  of  theology  which  the  Christian 
Church  has  known,"  said  Henry  B.  Smith,  in  his  An- 
dover  address  on  **  Faith  and  Philosophy."     The  move- 

1  Continuity  of  Christian  Thought^  p.  158. 

[178] 


Appendix 

ment  which  Schleiermacher  thus  instituted  was  carried 
forward  by  many  able  successors,  among  them  Schweizer, 
Neander,  Rothe,  and,  above  all,  he  whose  motto  was 
"  Christ,  in  whom  are  hid  all  the  treasures  of  wisdom 
and  knowledge,"  Isaac  August  Dorner.  The  latter's 
monumental  work,  "The  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of 
Christ,"  completed  in  1856,  together  with  his  constant 
insistence  upon  the  "  universal  significance  of  Christ "  as 
"the  productive  archetype"  and  "objective  historical 
center"  of  the  higher  Hfe,  exerted  great  influence  in 
shaping  thought  in  the  direction  of  the  person  of  Christ. 

The  movement  thus  begun  has  progressed  with  char- 
acteristic distinctions  in  Germany,  France^  England,  and 
America. 

In  England,  Coleridge,  Thomas  Arnold  of  Rugby, 
and  Frederick  D.  Maurice  prepared  the  way  for  a  truer 
conception  of  Christ, —  as  did  Thomas  Erskine  and 
McLeod  Campbell  in  Scotland,  by  exorcising  scholas- 
ticism and  formalism  from  theology,  especially  from 
Christology,  and  insisting  upon  sincerity  and  reality  as 
the  absolute  prerequisites  of  a  genuine  theology.  From 
the  day  that  Maurice,  with  his  searching,  iconoclastic 
sincerity,  thus  cleared  the  way  for  a  genuine  Christology, 
religious  thought  in  Great  Britain  has  converged  more 
and  more  toward  the  person  of  Christ.  "  Ecce  Homo  " 
(1863),  Robertson's  "Sermons,"  and  the  "Lives  of 
Christ"  of  Edersheim,  Giekie  and  Farrar  helped  in  various 
ways  to  promote  this  cause.  Liddon's  Bampton  Lectures 
on  "  Our  Lord's  Divinity,"  R.  W.  Dale's  writings,  A.  B. 
Bruce's  "Apologetics"  and  "Humiliation  of  Christ," 
have  all  furthered  the  movement.  At  the  present  time, 
the  Christocentric  theology,  as  represented  in  the 
Establishment  by  Canon  Gore,  and  among  the  Free 
[  179  ] 


Appendix 

Churches  by  Principal  Fairbaim,  is  unquestionably  the 
vital  and  dominant  theology.  In  addition  to  Canon 
Gore's  work  on  the  "  Incarnation,"  and  Principal  Fair- 
bairn's  "Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology"  and 
"Philosophy  of  Christianity,"  this  movement  has  given 
us  "  Lux  Mundi,"  and  James  Orr's  comprehensive  and 
scholarly  volume,  "  The  Christian  View  of  God  and  the 
World,"  with  its  able  exposition  of  the  principle  that  the 
person  of  Christ  is  "  necessarily  central  in  his  own  religion, 
nay,  in  the  universe."  Upon  the  same  lines  are  work- 
ing, with  great  enthusiasm  tempered  by  fine  scholarship, 
D.  W.  Forrest,  —  whose  work  on  *'The  Christ  of  His- 
tory and  of  Experience,"  is  one  of  the  most  suggestive 
contributions  to  the  discussion,  —  J.  R.  lUingworth,  Rob- 
ert Horton,  Principal  Forsyth,  and  others  who  are  leading 
the  religious  thinking  of  Great  Britain  to-day. 

Returning  to  Germany,  whatever  may  be  said  in  criti- 
cism of  the  theological  apostasy  of  Ritschlianism,  with 
its  motto,  "  Back  to  Christ,"  it  is  assuredly  a  Christo- 
centric  movement.  Christ  is  its  chiefest  Werthurthdl. 
In  so  far,  at  least,  it  is  apostolic  in  its  character,  and 
should  win  from  every  earnest  Christian  the  Pauline 
thanksgiving  for  all  means  by  which,  in  whatever  way, 
Christ  is  proclaimed.  Hermann  and  Kaftan  center 
theology  in  Christ;  and  Hamack  himself  —  that  electric 
battery  of  present-day  theology  —  (though  in  his  own 
way)  is  essentially  Christocentric  in  his  position.  "  Har- 
nack  is  not  less  convinced  than  Ritschl  of  the  uniqueness 
and  originality  of  Jesus  Christ.  If  we  ask  where  we  are 
to  find  the  essence  of  Christianity,  Hamack  answers  in  a 
word.  In  Jesus  Christ  and  in  his  gospel."  ^ 

*  William  Adams  Brown,  Essence  of  Christianity^  p.  281. 

[  180  ] 


Appendix 

America  has  not  been  wanting  in  her  appreciation  of 
the  significance  of  the  Christocentric  movement,  nor  in 
her  contributions  to  its  advancement.  Henry  B.  Smith 
was  the  prophet  of  the  movement  in  this  country,  and  as 
early  as  1849,  in  the  remarkable  address  already  alluded 
to,  lifted  high  and  clear  the  banner  of  the  new  theology 
in  the  memorable  words,  "  Christianity  is  not  only  an 
historic  revelation  and  an  internal  experience,  but  also  an 
organic,  diffusive,  plastic,  and  triumphant  force  in  human 
history ;  and  in  this  history,  as  in  the  revelation  and  in 
the  experience,  the  center  round  which  all  revolves  is  the 
person  of  Jesus  Christ."  But  it  was  not  given  to  Henry 
B.  Smith  to  work  out  the  large  conclusions  of  this  far- 
sighted  inspiration.  Before  that  could  be  accomplished, 
it  was  necessary  that  some  one  should  do  in  America 
a  work  analogous  to  that  of  Maurice  in  England,  and 
restore  to  Christology  reality  and  freedom.  That  was 
the  part  so  nobly  played,  and  at  such  cost,  by  Horace 
Bushnell.  Next  to  the  works  of  Bushnell,  probably  no 
theological  treatise  in  this  country  has  been  at  once 
so  emancipatory  and  constructive  as  Elisha  Mulford's 
"  Republic  of  God." 

The  history  of  the  Christocentric  movement  in  America 
is  too  fresh  and  familiar  to  need  repetition.  The  princi- 
ple and  motive  of  it  received  a  comprehensive  statement 
from  Professor  Egbert  C.  Smyth,  in  the  initial  number 
of  The  Andover  Review ^  in  which  he  wrote  :  "  God  is 
revealed  in  Christ.  The  possibility,  the  unity,  the  unifi- 
cation, of  a  science  of  theology  are  given  in  him  and  in 
him  alone." 

As  the  wider  Christocentric  movement  has  advanced, 
it  has  won  for  itself  here,  as  in  Great  Britain,  the  alle- 
giance of  many  of  the  keenest  and  most  active  minds, 

[181] 


Appendix 

both  in  pulpit  and  seminary  chair.  Dr.  George  A.  Gordon 
is  one  of  its  most  earnest  advocates.  President  A.  H. 
Strong,  Dr.  A.  H.  Bradford,  and  Dr.  VVm.  Newton  Clarke 
have  in  various  ways  interpreted  the  Christocentric  the- 
ology. The  late  lamented  Professor  Stearns  of  Bangor 
enthusiastically  adopted  it  in  his  inaugural,  and  reaffirmed 
it  in  his  address  before  the  London  International  Council. 
President  King,  in  his  notable  volumes,  "  The  Recon- 
struction of  Theology "  and  "  Theology  and  the  Social 
Consciousness,"  has  made  a  most  valuable  contribution 
to  Christology.  Dr.  McConnell's  **  Christ,"  a  book  at 
once  stimulating  and  superficial,  takes  the  Christocentric 
position.  The  number  of  Lives  of  Christ  that  have 
appeared  within  the  last  twenty  years,  and  are  still  ap- 
pearing, evidences  the  unflagging  interest  in  the  historic 
Christ.  Professor  William  Adams  Brown,  of  Union 
Seminary,  in  his  timely  volume,  "  The  Essence  of  Chris- 
tianity,"—  a  clear  and  effective  study  in  theology, — 
states  the  conclusion  of  his  research  as  follows  :  *'  Would 
we  express  in  a  sentence  what  makes  the  genius  of  Chris- 
tianity as  a  historic  religion,  we  cannot  do  so  better  than  by 
saying  that  it  is  the  progressive  realization,  in  thought  as 
in  life,  of  the  Supremacy  of  Christ." 

By  far  the  largest  constructive  and  carrying  power  in 
the  Christocentric  school  at  present  belongs  to  the  work 
of  Principal  Fairbairn  in  England,  and  of  Dr.  George  A. 
Gordon  in  this  country.  The  former,  upon  a  canvass  of 
such  magnitude  as  only  he  can  cover,  has  given  us  such 
a  presentation  of  the  "  architectonic  "  nature  of  Chris- 
tianity, as  it  centers  in  Christ, —  its  range,  its  significance, 
its  supremacy,  as  it  is  related  to  other  religions  and  to 
racial  needs,  —  as  affords  to  Christianity  a  new  concep- 
tion  of  its  commission  and  conquering  power  as  the 

[182] 


Appendix 

universal  religion.  The  latter,  Dr.  Gordon,  in  "The 
Christ  of  To-day,"  "  The  New  Epoch  for  Faith,"  and 
*'  Ultimate  Conceptions  of  Christianity,"  has  given  us  a 
no  less  inspiring  interpretation  of  the  intensive,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  extensive,  relation  of  Christ  to  human 
life  and  to  our  civilization,  which  He  has  so  permeated 
that  it  can  neither  understand  itself  nor  realize  its  ends 
apart  from  Him. 

Sufficient  evidence  has  been  adduced,  perhaps,  to  in- 
dicate how  wide-spread,  how  vital,  and  how  thoroughly 
an  outgrowth  of  our  own  period,  is  this  renewed  Chris- 
tologizing  of  theology.^  That  it  has  for  many  years  been 
recognized  as  the  dominating  principle  of  modern  theol- 
ogy is  witnessed  by  the  statement  of  Professor  Fisher, 
when,  at  the  close  of  his  "  History  of  Doctrine,"  in 
summing  up  the  present  doctrinal  situation,  he  concludes  : 
**  The  question  of  the  implication  of  Christ's  person  and 
work  forms  the  rubrics  of  the  modern  theological  system." 

1  How  far  this  revival  of  interest  in  Christology  is  a  mod- 
ern tendency  may  be  seen  by  noting  the  proportionate  place 
given  to  Christology  in  a  comprehensive  system  of  theology 
of  an  earlier  day,  such  as  Hodge's,  which  consists  of  three 
large  volumes :  I.  Theology;  II.  Anthropology;  HI.  So- 
teriology  and  Eschatology. 


[183] 


II 

THE   VITAL  ISSUES  OF  THE   HARNACK 
CONTROVERSY 

In  the  field  of  theology  and  philosophy,  certain  books 
serve  successively  as  conflict  centers,  by  means  of  which 
opposing  parties  define  and  test  one  another.  Such  a 
book  is  Hamack's  "  What  is  Christianity  ?  "  It  is 
admirably  adapted  to  arouse  interest  and  provoke  con- 
troversy. Candid,  perspicuous,  positive,  pertinent,  fasci- 
nating in  style,  filled  with  the  fruits  of  ripe  scholarship 
and  strenuous  thinking,  it  is  not  surprising  that  it  has 
stirred  theological  stagnation  as  no  book  of  the  century 
has  thus  far  done.  It  has  interested  theological  students, 
shocked  Sunday-school  teachers,  stimulated  preachers, 
roused  theologians  from  their  "  dogmatic  slumbers,"  and 
drawn  the  attention  of  thoughtful  minds  outside  the 
Church  back  to  the  fundamental  problems  of  theology, 
in  a  remarkable  way. 

There  has  been  a  general  effort  to  "  place  "  the  book, 
—  to  apperceive  it.  Is  it  orthodox  or  heterodox,  sound 
or  dangerous,  trustworthy  or  biased  ?  Over  this  problem 
the  Church  has,  for  four  years  and  more,  been  puzzling. 
Meanwhile  appreciation,  endorsement,  criticism,  and  at- 
tack have  been  multiplying. 

In  estimating  the  real  tendency  and  significance  of 
Professor  Hamack's  statement  of  the  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity, two  criticisms  are  of  special  value  as  coming  from 

[.841 


Appendix 

contrasted  Christian  standpoints  —  Professor  Hermann 
Cremer's  "  Reply  to  Harnack  "  and  Alfred  Loisy's  "  The 
Gospel  and  the  Church." 

The  controversy  regarding  Hamack's  representation 
of  the  essence  of  Christianity  {Das  Wesen  des  Christes- 
thums)  resolves  itself  in  the  light  of  criticism  and  in 
perspective  into  two  issues :  ( i )  as  to  the  method  of 
finding  the  essence  of  Christianity  and  (2)  as  to  what  is 
that  essence. 

(i)  In  order  to  determine  the  true  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity, Harnack  maintains,  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  to 
the  primitive  gospel  itself,  in  its  purity  and  simplicity. 
Very  ably  and  adroitly  has  M.  Loisy,  taking  the  law  of 
evolution  as  his  apologetic  principle,  argued,  in  refuta- 
tion of  Harnack,  that  Christianity  is  to  be  understood 
only  in  the  whole  process  and  product  of  its  develop- 
ment. "  The  full  life  of  the  gospel,"  he  asserts,  "  is 
not  in  a  solitary  element  of  the  doctrine  of  Jesus,  but 
in  the  totality  of  its  manifestation,  which  starts  from  the 
personal  ministry  of  Christ,  and  its  development  in  the 
history  of  Christianity."  ^  This  would  be  convincing  if 
the  history  of  Christianity  had  been  pure  development. 
But,  such  it  has  not  been.  Degeneration  has  all  too 
plainly  accompanied  evolution ;  the  purity  of  the  gospel 
has  been  stained  by  contact  with  a  corrupting  environ- 
ment ;  the  normal  course  of  development  has  been  de- 
flected and  distorted  by  opposition  and  obstacle;  the 
essential  and  vital  truth  has  been  overlaid  with  extra- 
neous and  irrelevant  accretions.  Not  that  there  has  not 
been  development,  pure  and  progressive ;  but  in  order 
to  trace  this  it  is  necessary  to  disentangle  it  from  false 

1  The  Gospel  and  the  Church,  p.  115. 


Appendix 

forms  and  from  extraneous  issues,  and,  above  all,  to  get 
back  as  nearly  as  possible  to  the  source  and  spring  from 
which  the  movement  started.  This  Harnack  endeavors 
to  do. 

"  Herr  Harnack,"  writes  Loisy,  "  does  not  conceive 
Christianity  as  a  seed,  at  first  a  plant  in  potentiality, 
then  a  real  plant,  identical  from  the  beginning  of  its 
evolution  to  the  final  limit  and  from  the  root  to  the  sum- 
mit of  the  stem,  but  as  a  fruit,  ripe,  or  rather  over- 
ripe, that  must  be  peeled  to  reach  the  incorruptible 
kernel ;  and  Herr  Harnack  peels  his  fruit  with  such  per- 
severance that  the  question  arises  if  anything  will  re- 
main at  the  end."  ^  It  is  strange  that  M.  Loisy  makes 
no  allusion  to  the  fact  that  this  is  precisely  what  Har- 
nack, in  so  many  words,  had  said  that  he  should  not  do. 
"  We  must  not  be  like  the  child,  who,  wanting  to  get  at 
the  kernel  of  a  bulb,  went  on  picking  off  the  leaves  until 
there  was  nothing  left,  and  then  could  not  help  seeing 
that  it  was  just  the  leaves  that  made  the  bulb.  En- 
deavors of  this  kind  are  not  unknown  in  the  history  of 
the  Christian  religion,  but  they  fade  before  those  other 
endeavors  [with  what  prescience  he  here  forestalls  Loisy] 
which  seek  to  convince  us  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
either  kernel  or  husk,  growth  or  decay,  but  that  every- 
thing is  of  equal  value  and  alike  permanent."  * 

"  But  did  not  Harnack  peel  the  bulb,  nevertheless  ?  " 
it  will  be  asked.  That  is  the  question  —  whether  he 
peeled  the  bulb,  or  simply  peeled  off  the  dead  and  useless 
integument  in  which  it  is  encased. 

(2)  Although  in  his  "preliminary"  pages  Harnack 
makes  several  statements,  in  which  he  seems  to  present 

^  The  Gospel  and  the  Churchy  p.  19. 
*  What  is  Christianity?  second  edition,  p.  16. 
[.86] 


Appendix 

the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  center  of  the  gospel, 
when  he  comes  to  state  more  precisely  the  essence  of 
the  gospel,  we  find  that  he  makes  it  consist  in  the  Father- 
hood  of  God ;  as  revealed,  not  so  much  through  the 
character  and  personality  of  Christ,  as  through  his 
knowledge  of  God  —  a  knowledge  such  as  no  one  be- 
fore him  ever  had.  "  Rightly  understood,  the  name  of 
Son  means  nothing  but  the  knowledge  of  God."  ^  For  a 
basis  of  this  theory  of  revelation,  Harnack  relies  upon 
the  saying,  "  No  one  knoweth  the  Son,  save  the  Father ; 
neither  doth  any  know  the  Father,  save  the  Son,  and  he 
to  whomsoever  the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  him." 

Very  clear  and  simple  a  Christology  is  this,  but  also 
very  limited.  Is  it  the  Christology  of  Christ  himself? 
Manifestly  not,  if  we  accept  the  sayings  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  as  in  any  sense  reflecting  the  mind  of  Christ. 
For  there  Jesus  gives  a  prominence  to  his  personality 
which  makes  loyalty  to  him  involve  far  more  than  a  mere 
keeping  of  his  commandments.  Nor  is  this  the  Chris- 
tology of  Paul,  nor  of  the  New  Testament  as  a  whole. 

It  is  impossible  to  measure  Harnack  without  reckoning 
with  Ritschl.  It  is  in  the  Ritschlian  denial  of  the  right 
of  reason  to  interpret  the  facts  of  history  and  experience 
—  in  other  words,  its  attempt  to  taboo  "  metaphysical 
theology  " —  that  we  find  the  secret  of  Harnack's  impov- 
erization  of  the  gospel.  "Thou  hast  nothing  to  draw 
with,  and  the  well  is  deep,"  says  Ritschlianism  to  him 
who  seeks  to  know  more  of  Christ  than  lies  upon  the 
surface  of  the  Synoptic  narrative.  "  Here  all  research 
must  stop,"  ^  proclaims  Harnack  with  the  same  restrictive 
dogmatism.     But  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  could 

1  What  is  Christianity  f  second  edition,  p.  138. 
*  Ibid.  p.  139. 

[•87] 


Appendix 

not  stop  here,  neither  could  Paul,  nor  the  unknown  writer 
of  the  Hebrews,  nor  the  Apologists,  nor  Athanasius,  nor 
Augustine,  nor  Thomas  Aquinas,  nor  the  Mystics,  nor  the 
Reformers,  nor  the  Cambridge  Platonists,  nor  Jonathan 
Edwards,  nor  Horace  Bushnell,  nor  Maurice,  nor  Fair- 
bairn,  nor  Gordon,  nor  Loisy.  Strongly,  steadily, 
persistently,  this  development  of  the  New  Testament 
Christology  has  gone  forward  throughout  the  course  of 
Christian  history,  in  tireless  response  to  Jesus*  own  ques- 
tion :  "  What  think  ye  of  the  Christ?  whose  son  is  he?  " 
If  the  development  has  been  in  the  main  a  baseless  and 
fruitless  one,  the  Church  has  gone  far  astray  and  has 
much  to  unlearn. 

But  such  a  conclusion  is  not  likely  to  be  reached. 
The  Pauline  conception  of  Christ  is  deeply  seated  in  the 
heart  of  the  Church ;  though  no  Christology  is  adequate 
for  its  full  expression.  It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that 
such  a  protest  as  that  of  Professor  Cremer  —  undiscrim- 
inating,  unordered,  ineffective,  but  genuine  —  flames  up 
from  the  faith  of  the  older  Protestantism  to  challenge 
Harnack ;  while  from  the  side  of  Catholicism  emanates 
the  scholarly,  judicious  criticism  of  Loisy,  condemned 
for  that  very  scholarship  which  is  its  strength. 

No  defect  in  Harnack's  Christology,  however,  can 
nullify  the  freshening  and  stimulating  value  of  his  work. 
The  limitations  of  his  Christology  the  Christian  com- 
munion will  gradually  recognize  and  fill  up  ;  his  clarifying 
and  glowing  treatment  of  historic  Christianity  it  will  prize 
and  utilize.  More  than  that.  In  the  re-jelation  of  the 
Divine  Fatherhood^  Harnack  has  certainly  discerned  the 
heart  of  the  gospel.  That  tnith  is  reached,  as  Harnack 
expressly  maintains,  through  Christ.  This  is  Christianity 
and  it  is  historic  Christianity.  It  is  as  distressing  as  it  is 
[■88] 


Appendix 

surprising,  therefore,  to  find  Professor  Charles  A.  Briggs 
asserting :  "  The  solution  which  Harnack  gives  is  de- 
structive to  historic  Christianity.  He  gives  a  Christianity, 
as  his  German  critics  rightly  say,  without  Christ.  He 
gives  a  Christianity  to  which  a  Jew  or  a  Mohammedan 
or  any  monotheistic  Oriental  would  find  little  difficulty 
in  subscribing."  ^  Such  a  superficial  judgment  is  most 
misleading.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  neither  Mohammedan- 
ism, nor  Judaism,  nor  any  other  Oriental  monotheism 
ever  found  the  universal  Fatherhood  of  God,  in  the 
intimate  sense  in  which  Harnack  defines  it.  If  any 
Oriental  monotheist  of  to-day  has  found  the  Fatherhood, 
in  the  full  sense  of  the  word,  he  has  found  it,  mediately 
or  immediately,  through  Christ. 

To  understand  Hamack's  real  estimate  of  Christ  and 
the  place  which  his  personality  occupies  in  the  gospel, 
it  is  necessary  to  supplement  this  volume  with  such  an 
utterance  as  that  contained  in  his  lecture  on  "  Christian- 
ity and  History,"  delivered  before  the  Evangelical  Union 
of  Berlin,  in  1895.  In  this  lecture  he  discusses  the  rela- 
tion of  the  personality  of  Jesus  to  history.  To  quote  but 
a  single  sentence  :  "  When  God  and  everything  that  is 
sacred  threatens  to  disappear  in  darkness,  or  our  doom  is 
pronounced  ;  when  the  mighty  forces  of  inexorable  nature 
seem  to  overwhelm  us  and  the  bounds  of  good  and  evil 
to  dissolve  ;  when,  weak  and  weary,  we  despair  of  finding 
God  at  all  in  this  dismal  world  —  it  is  then  that  the 
personality  of  Christ  may  save  us."  ^  The  import  and 
emphasis  of  such  declarations  are  unmistakable  in  their 
ringing  accord  with  historic  evangelical  Christianity. 

No,  Harnack  has  taken  the  true  method  and  reached 

5^  1  The  Expositor^  April,  1905. 

\  *  Translation  by  T.  B.  Saunders,  p.  47. 

[189] 


Appendix 

the  real  essence  of  Christianity,  only  he  has  failed  to 
recognize  the  true  character  and  claim  of  the  Mediator 
through  whom  he  reached  it.  The  medium  through 
which  he  has  seen  the  truth  is  so  transparent  and  perfect 
that  he  is  unaware  of  it.  In  order  to  look  through  Christ 
to  the  Father,  he  forgets  that  he  had  first  to  look  at  him. 
He  has  not  seen  the  Sonship  for  the  Fatherhood.  He  is 
like  one  who,  finding  himself  in  the  Holy  of  holies,  forgets 
the  Holy  place  through  which  he  has  entered ;  or,  if  he 
does  not  forget  it,  regards  it  only  as  a  vestibule,  a  pene- 
traUf  and  not  as  a  part  of  the  Inner  Temple. 


UNIVER ^ 


[  190] 


S^r.Soro'MU^enod^ . 


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